Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Hearst papers to ration free Web content

|
|
 
  
Published: March. 1, 2009 at 8:39 AM
Advertisement

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1 (UPI) -- Hearst Corp. says its U.S. newspapers will hold back some printed content from their free Web sites as online advertising slows sharply industrywide.

Just how much print newspaper content Hearst will keep off its free Web sites has yet to be determined, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Cablevision Systems Corp. said last week it plans to turn the free Web site for its Newsday daily into a subscription site.

"Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management, whose mission should be to run the best free Web sites in our markets without compromising our ability to get a fair price from consumers for the expensive, unique reporting and writing that we produce each day," Steven Swartz, Hearst Newspapers president, said in a staff memo obtained by the Journal.

The financial impact is unclear because there are no existing comparable models. But many newspapers have seen their online advertising slow sharply or shrink while most sell less than half -- and some far less than that -- of the available ad slots on their Web sites, the Journal said.

Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
The making of the Oscars The Chicago Auto Show The Tibetan Moniam Festival in China
Additional Business News Stories
1 of 19
Tiger Woods plays Spyglass Hill in the AT&T Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, California
View Caption
fark
Get ready, it's time for the Fark Weird News Quiz. #suckitBBC
Greek MPs resigning left, right and far-right over the latest demands from EZ finance ministers....
Don't you hate it when you visit your mother's grave and discover they're about to bury someone...
Wᴀsʜɪɴɢᴛᴏɴ Dc NEEDs tᴏ work oN ɪts ᴍɪXEᴅ-ᴄAsE sᴛʀEᴇᴛ sɪGɴs
Nearly 1 in 20 U.S. adults over 50 has fake knees; no stats available yet on the number of sharp...
1.7M coffee makers recalled after users were reportedly sprayed with hot water. On the bright side,...