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SCOTT JAGOW: Google has snatched away a lot of advertising dollars from newspapers. Now, it wants to give some of them back. This week, Google starts testing a new program that will connect its advertisers with good old-fashioned newspaper ad space. Of course, this isn’t a charity case. Google thinks it can make money here. Jeff Tyler explains.
JEFF TYLER: The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune are among at least 50 major newspapers participating in a Google experiment.
Through January, the Internet giant will create an online marketplace to help print media sell advertising electronically. Newspapers will be able to set minimum prices and turn away ads that aren’t the right editorial fit.
But Abe Klassen with Advertising Age says the papers don’t want to steer their existing clients over to Google.
ABE KLASSEN: “The only way that traditional media is going to be interested in doing these deals with Google is if Google can promise to introduce new advertisers to the medium. And we’re seeing that with this newspaper deal.”
Google’s typical advertisers are much smaller than the ones that usually appear in papers, and so would represent a new market.
This is only one front in Google’s assault on advertising. The company is already moving into radio ads, and with its acquisition of YouTube, Klassen says the company appears perched to go after video and television ads as well.
In New York, I’m Jeff Tyler for Marketplace.