NYT Selling Display Ads on Page One

File this one under: Comes as no surprise.

In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York Times has begun selling display advertising on its front page, a step that has become increasingly common across the newspaper industry.

The first such ad, appearing Monday in color, was bought by CBS. The ad, two-and-a-half inches high, lies horizontally across the bottom of the front page, below the news articles and a brief summary of some articles in the paper. In a statement, the paper said such ads would be placed “below the fold” — that is, on the lower half of the page.

Read the whole article here

I read in the WSJ yesterday one expert who is already predicting the demise of banner ads on Web sites. She referred to them as the new ‘junk mail,’ and I can see why; those ads rarely contain anything I care about. And while I’m sure the huge revenue number attached to that CBS ad is triggering enormous hormonal imbalances in every ad director in the country, I still can’t help but think that newspapers may have arrived at the party a bit too late.

– Ciao