Media
CNC: Extra, extra, read all the ads (on the front page)
Boston Business Journal - by Donna L. Goodison
Community Newspaper Group will roll out a new program next year that will allow advertisers to buy space on the front pages of its weekly newspapers.
The ads first will begin appearing in CNC's metro group of 17 newspapers, which include the Tab publications, before being implemented shortly thereafter to all of the chain's 87 weeklies, according to Mark O'Neil, CNC's senior vice president of sales and marketing.
"Our program will roll out the first week of the New Year, depending upon the individual publication dates," O'Neil said. "By the beginning of February, we should have a program rolled out in all our titles in the weekly side of the business."
The ads are seen as a way to increase revenue for the newspaper company at a time when newspapers across the country are experiencing severe drop-offs in advertising.
O'Neil wouldn't quantify CNC's advertising revenue decline, but he acknowledged, "It's been a challenging year." He expects the next quarter to remain challenging, but he's anticipating a rebound later in 2002.
"As most newspapers have struggled this year, we've been affected greatly by the recruitment category downfall," O'Neil said. "That's where we've seen the greatest erosion."
The idea of front-page ads has been kicked around at CNC for years, and executives decided to move forward with them now that all of CNC's newspapers have been converted from tabloids to broadsheets, giving them more space on the front pages.
The front-page ads will be limited to five one-column-by two-inch ads across the bottoms of the newspapers. (The sixth columns of the papers typically will be reserved for editorial indexes.) The ads will have common formats; there will be no diverse borders, reverses or color used.
"There'll be five unique advertisers," O'Neil said. "It's a premium positioning price, and that differs by newspaper."
CNC's goal is to sell local ads, but it will open up the spaces to national advertisers if necessary to fill the space. O'Neil said CNC will require the ads to be more image- and positioning-related statements rather than point-of-purchase advertisements.
It will not accept front-page political advertising or ads for gambling or adult entertainment.
From the editorial side of the paper, CNC editor-in-chief Kevin Convey said most editorial folks think of page one as a place for news only. At the same time, he said, they would much rather see front-page ads than layoffs.
"I think editorial people in general are not crazy about having ads on page one, but, at the same time, we're cognizant of the need to float the boat and the economy we're in," Convey said. "I think every newspaper in America, given the length and depth of this recession, is looking for ways to improve their revenue picture."
And readers don't seem to share editorial concerns about advertising joining the news on front pages, according to Convey. In newspaper markets where front-page ads are run, he said, there's been very little negative reaction to a practice that was common in the 1960s and 1970s.
"It appears to be a nonissue with readers," Convey said.
Front-page ads already are running on several CNC newspapers that were part of the Suburban World Newspapers chain that parent company Herald Media Inc. purchased in February. In that case, CNC continued an already-established practice at papers including the Needham Times, Dover-Sherborn Press, Medfield Press and Westwood Press.
CNC doesn't plan to run page-one ads on its daily newspapers -- the Metro-West Daily News, Milford Daily News, Neponset Valley Daily News and the Daily News Tribune, which covers Newton, Waltham and Watertown.
According to O'Neil, design constraints and the frequency with which the daily newspapers are published prompted CNC to "leave the dailies alone at this point."
Over at the Boston Globe, Mary Jane Patrone, senior vice president of sales and marketing, had no comment on CNC's decision to run the front-page ads.
"I guess I'd have to see it," Patrone said.
The Globe last year began running ads on pages two and three of its newspaper after a redesign gave it a narrower web width. There are no plans to sell ads for page one, however.
"At this point, I don't think we'd consider it," Patrone said.
But both Patrone and Convey point to that bastion of newspaperdom, the New York Times, and its practice of carrying page-one ads.
"They're kind of little," Patrone said of the ads. "But there is precedent out there."
DONNA L. GOODISON covers retail, hospitality and the media for the Boston Business Journal. She can be reached by e-mail at DGoodison@bizjournals.com.
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