April 14, 2007
Yahoo to deepen old media ties
The veiled threat against Google last week by newspaper newbie Sam Zell has had the blogosphere buzzing all week.
Following the NBC/Fox joint agreement to place their video on a range of big internet portals, maybe this was a sign that newspaper owners would also start to extract favourable deals from internet companies, suggested ValleyWag. Yahoo, which has positioned itself as Old Media’s friend, might be a good place to start. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s response: you must be kidding.
Lending some weight to the ValleyWag position is this story from the LA Times today, which says that last year’s advertising partnership between Yahoo and a group of US newspapers is about to be expanded. According to the LA Times:
The Internet portal has agreed to place prominent links - including on section fronts for Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance - that will drive readers back to local newspaper websites, one of the newspaper executives said.
This is still a far cry from the sort of deal the TV companies have managed to extract. They will get an estimated 90 per cent of the ad revenue when they place their video on Yahoo, MSN and other portals. But at least it’s a step in the right direction.
