Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune ad alliance would have been better in 2002

The alliance that Gannett Co. (NYSE:CCI), McClatchy Co. (NYSE:MNI) and Tribune Co. (NYSE:TRB) are reportedly going to form to court national advertisers to their Web sites would have been a better idea in 2002.

Advertisers like phone companies and car makers will get a one-stop shop to reach a national audience without the hassle of negotiating separate deals with individual papers through what the companies have dubbed "The Open Network," according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). {As an aside, can I make a plea to corporate america to stop the stupid code names.}

The question I have for the newspaper publishers is why they think the national advertisers will bother. They can reach much larger audiences through the portals like this one, Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:Yhoo), which has its own alliance with newspaper publishers. Plus, they have the option of using Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG) to promote their brands. Moreover, most of these publications -- with the exception of USA Today -- aren't national in nature.

About the only way this can work will be if the papers price these ads so low that the advertisers would be stupid not to give the Open Network a try instead of spending their money with either Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE:DJ) or the New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT). That won't be easy.

As the Journal notes, newspapers haven't had much sucess in working together to sell national print ads. With all of the ad money shifting online, what makes them think this alliance will work better? There's big pressure on newspaper publishers to grow their online businesses, which will remain smaller than the print side for some time to come.

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