New online advertising project takes off

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: Four media companies, including Hearst Corp, announced that they have launched an online sales venture to target large advertisers seeking national exposure.

Other investors in the organisation, which is called quadrantONE, are Tribune Co., Gannett Co and The New York Times Co. By combining the online audiences of the partici-pating media companies, “large national advertisers can immedi-ately access tens of millions of unique visitors in the country’s top markets,” said Dana Hayes, quadrantONE’s interim CEO.

The network will offer customised online advertising campaigns on a highly competitive basis, said Hayes, who is also senior vice-president for sales for Tribune Interactive.

The network of Chicago-based quadrantONE will have a reach of nearly 50 million unique visitors each month, covering 27 of the top 30 markets, the company said. Advertisers will have access to such markets as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and San Jose, Calif. Lincoln Millstein, senior vice- president for digital media at Hearst Newspapers, said the alliance was created to help streamline the ad-buying process for national advertisers.

Before it was created, a company seeking to buy a group of online ads from the partici-pating news organisations had to contact each Web site individu-ally. The network is designed to create an easy and effective way for national and regional adver-tisers to buy premium newspaper Web sites. The network will also allow the participating media companies to better compete for ad dollars with national portals.

More than half of national online display advertising revenue goes to the top 10 portals, Millstein said.