LA Times to run ads on section fronts

A slowly sinking ship. Wonder where TJ Simers will wind up?

 

Every newspaper is a sinking ship. Or have you been asleep for the last 30 years?

 

I don't know why anyone would have an issue with it. Surprised everyone doesn't do it.
I mean, ad revenue is the bulk of a newspaper's revenue, isn't it?

 

Thanks for the call. [/stolenfromMU_was_not_so_hard]

 

To me it depends on the size of the ad/ads. If it's a small, earlug, that's not bad. If it cuts into your newshole, then maybe it's not the greatest thing, regardless of revenue.

 

This is no big deal. I worked for a paper in the 1970s that ran a 6 column, 3-inch ad from an auto dealer on the bottom of the sports front every day. As did a few papers nearby. We had room for one less story on the cover, other than that it was business as usual. In the early 1980s, Camel cigarettes bought the scoreboard page in hundreds of newspapers, ad on top and bottom of the page, called "The Camel Scoreboard," but the content was entirely up to us as long as it was national agate. No big deal, either. It's revenue. It's a good thing. As long as they don't try to dictate content, I'm in favor of us getting as much revenue as possible.

 

i see no problem whatsoever with ads on the section front.

i also know my view is in the minority because i also have no beef with ads on professional sports team jerseys and the way advertising insidiously creeps into our lives. people - and businesses - need money, so if the LAT decides it needs to advertise on section fronts or verizon needs to advertise on airline tray tables and people are willing to pay for those ads, i have no problem with it.

 

I think it has something to do with influence. Because you know everyone is going to lobby for the front page ads.
At least, that appears to be the senitiment of the editors at the LAT, who seem to have a problem with it.

via romenesko ...

The ads will run across the bottom of the covers of the Calendar, Sports, Business and Sunday Travel sections. Editor Dean Baquet says he "expressed concern" about ads running on the front of the Calendar section, fearing that articles about movies would run next to film ads, perhaps giving the appearance that coverage had been compromised. "I think there is a way we can handle it," he says. || Publisher: "We have no plans for ads on A1."

 

Long before newspapers were "in trouble" . . . many section fronts ran ads.

Ads have been running on the back page (sports section fronts) of tabloids for a long time, and I haven't heard any bitching about that.

You go to a movie now, you get ads between the coming attractions and the feature.

 

Just to be clear, this is a Tribune Co.-wide decision, not just an LA Times decision.

 

You don't lobby for a front-page ad, you pay a premium for the position, same as you pay a premium for the back page and the centerspread. You don't give it to an advertiser as a favor, it goes to anyone willing to pay a higher price, almost always on a contract basis rather than a one-shot deal. That's why I think the LAT editor's concern is off-base. Some company will contract for it, say three times a week for six months with an option to renew. Sometimes a company will want it every day or five or six days a week. Makes more sense for a TV station or auto dealer or something like that than a movie or record company.

 

Yep. And again, there are tons of papers that run ads on section fronts.

As long as it's not a half-page ad ... there shouldn't be a problem here.

This is no big deal ... it doesn't signal a decline any more than anything else does. Newspapers are a business -- key word, business. It'll probably be a one-inch strip ad. Nothing to worry about.