Papers chase web ads

Local newspapers in the US have been significantly damaged by the growth of online advertising services, according to a new report published by ClassifiedIntelligence.com.

The popularity of sites such as eBay and Craigslist, which allow users to advertise and sell a wide range of items at little or no cost, is forcing newspapers to reduce their advertising rates or offer free services to compete.

Two thirds of the newspapers surveyed said that they were planning to launch new services to compete with sites like eBay and Craigslist within the next six months.

But some newspapers are still struggling to deal with the threat of web advertising. One executive at a national paper told researchers that he was vaguely aware of Craigslist but did not know if it covered his patch – the website actually listed more than 30,000 ads competing with his publication.

One other executive said that classified managers just wanted the internet "to go away".

"Newspapers have known for a long time that eBay and Craigslist were significant threats, but this is the first study that shows just how much they're damaging daily newspapers - which ran about $2 billion in merchandise classifieds last year," said Peter Zollman, founder of Classified Intelligence.

"It should serve as a real call to action so they focus on how to maintain the marketplace in their local markets - if they haven’t lost it already."

The full report is available at ClassifiedIntelligence.com.

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See also:
ClassifiedIntelligence.com: http://www.classifiedintelligence.com

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