July 19, 2006 Front Page of Journal to Get Ads By JULIE BOSMAN and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/business/media/19adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print The Wall Street Journal calls it a jewel box, but readers of its front page will know it by its common name: advertising. The Journal confirmed yesterday the speculation that it would open its front page to advertisers, probably in September, a move that could bring in tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue. The Wall Street Journal will provide the most valuable opportunity anywhere in any medium for advertisers who want to reach a large, affluent and influential audience, L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Journal and executive vice president of The Journals owner, Dow Jones & Company, said in an interview. Mr. Crovitz said that internally The Journal referred to the front-page ad as a jewel box, and indeed, it will showcase some of the papers biggest, most valued advertisers on some of the most prominent real estate in the print industry, commanding premium rates. The Journal, with a print circulation of about 1.7 million, has the second-highest weekday circulation in the country, after USA Today. The ad, which can be in color, will probably be more or less square-shaped and run in the bottom right-hand corner. A second option might be a strip ad along the bottom of the page. The move is one more sign of the relentless financial pressures that have forced newspapers to consider new ways of raising money like giving prominence to advertisers in areas of the paper once considered sacred. Because of The Journals prominence and adherence to tradition, the decision could be influential. American newspapers ran front-page ads in bygone days, but in modern times, most have not done so. USA Today, owned by Gannett, has run a strip ad on the bottom of its front page since 1999, and most Gannett papers also run front-page ads. Last year, The Journal began selling ads on the front of some of its individual sections and on the front pages of its overseas editions. This month, The New York Times began selling ads on the front of its business section; the paper had already been selling ads on the front of The Metro Section on Sundays and has run small classified ads on its front page for years. In Britain, front-page ads appear in both The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times (which is also distributed in the United States). As a traditionalist, Im not thrilled by the idea, said Bob Steele, who specializes in ethics and values at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla. Front pages, Mr. Steele said, should be reserved for what the collective community considers to be news. Gannett has changed this equation considerably in the last few years with section-front and front-page ads, and now the Internet has presented a whole new tabletop, he said. The question becomes, How do newspapers protect their journalistic integrity at the same time they develop new revenue streams? While journalists may grumble about ad creep, Mr. Crovitz said that readers, at least those in Journal focus groups, did not care. We had a question about how readers would react to the front-page ad, and we were struck by how insignificant an issue it was, he said. The addition of advertising on the front page means less space for news. Mr. Crovitz said The Journal would keep the same number of articles on its front despite the ad. With the price of newsprint climbing, many papers are moving to a smaller page size. In January, as part of a $100 million overhaul, The Journal will be redesigned and the width will narrow to about 12 inches from about 15 inches. It plans to add two or four pages to its average daily run of 54 pages, but will still lose about 10 percent of the space it devotes to news. The company has said the changes will save $18 million a year in newsprint costs. The New York Times announced this week that it was also moving to a smaller size, in 2008, shrinking one and a half inches in width, to 12 inches. The Times will lose about 5 percent of the space it now devotes to news. It is unclear what price a front-page ad in The Journal might command. Media planners, who advise clients where to place advertising, speculated that such ads could bring anywhere from $75,000 to somewhere in the low six figures, several times the cost of a similar-size ad inside the paper. Mr. Crovitz would not comment on the cost of the ads or say who had committed to buying ad space. But, he said, We are making this opportunity available to our largest advertisers, and that seemed like the fair way to do this. A full-page color ad in the national edition of The Journal, if purchased on a noncontract basis, costs $248,060.32, according to The Journals Web site. A black-and-white ad costs $193,797.12. In USA Today, a front-page ad sells for $27,350 in the Monday through Thursday papers, and $33,390 in the Friday edition, which has a higher circulation and remains on newsstands through Sunday. One media buyer predicted that the space would be highly attractive to any advertiser seeking widespread exposure among an influential, elite audience. Everybodys looking for the beachfront real estate, said Charlie Rutman, the chief executive for North America at MPG in New York, the media agency owned by Havas. But readers may view the move as an intrusion onto front-page editorial space. Its a two-edged sword, said David Sklaver, president of East Coast operations for the media agency KSL Media in New York. Sometimes putting ads where readers dont want them is, in a way, like being spammed. When asked about the new offering, several companies that already advertise in The Journal were noncommittal. The big question for all of us is, Will the pricing be offset by the return? said Nicholas A. Utton, the chief marketing officer for E*Trade, in an e-mail message. Another regular advertiser, Mercedes-Benz, indicated that it would hesitate to place ads on the front page. The company often runs a small ad on Page A3, near an ad for Tiffany & Company. The idea is to be around brands of a similar caliber, said Donna Boland, a spokeswoman for Mercedes. So Im not sure that strategy would lend itself to Page 1. And she cited another drawback: Honestly, I think that would be a really expensive ad. ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
