Bright Spots for Traditional Media?

Flying in the face of reports and general conjecture throughout the media and blogosphere that newspapers and traditional media companies have done a lackluster job in establishing online ad models, is a report from private-equity group Veronis Suhler Stevenson described here by the Financial Times.

According to the report, 37 percent of the $22 billion expected to be spent on online and mobile advertising in the U.S. will be attributed to traditional media companies such as magazine and newspaper publishers. This is up from a 23 percent share in 2000, and it is expected to reach 39 percent of the projected $44 billion online ad market in 2010.

Leaders in establishing online ad models that are mentioned in the article, and mentioned here in the past, include The New York Times Co., Dow Jones, Time Warner and News Corp. I would add Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and a few growing publishers that are increasing their investment levels in online news and ad distribution, such as MediaNews Group and McClatchy. They still admittedly have a long way to go.

We’re in the midst of planning our November Interactive Local Media conference in Philadelphia and will have a few sessions on newspapers, including several speakers from the aforementioned publishers. More on our recent newspaper coverage here, and more on the conference here.