Yahoo! Online-Offline Venture Down Under

In the category of too much news to cover was this older item that appeared in ClickZ (and covered also in SEW blog). Yahoo! has entered a joint venture with Seven Network in Australia and New Zealand. The largest TV company in Oz, Seven has online and magazine assets as well.

Here's the relevant paragraph in the ClickZ piece:

Yahoo! plans to combine its global content, products and technology with Seven-owned content to create localized online media, entertainment, and ad opportunities online. Advertisers will be able to purchase combined offline and online sponsorships across Yahoo! Australia & NZ, the Seven Network and Pacific Magazines.

This move reflects two things: 1) Yahoo!'s desire to be a powerful offline brand and 2) to offer a centralized media buy for both online and offline placements. (We might also say something about Yahoo!'s content aspirations being accelerated with this relationship.)

With its TiVo relationship and its recent VoIP moves, Yahoo! is doing something vaguely similar in the U.S.

Expect to see more such arrangements in the U.S. and Europe, through joint ventures or mergers/acquisitions. This sort of model is the future.

Traditional media companies know they have to offer effective online ad opportunities (think News Corp.) and Internet companies (esp. Google, Yahoo! and MSN) know they need to — eventually — be able to offer a unified ad buy that includes both online and offline inventory.