Consolidation of Press Advertising Sales?

Newspaper groups are discussing merging their advertising sales.

With declining print revenues and a lack of online growth in the face of Google and Facebook’s dominance over the past 18 months proprietors and media owners have had to focus their minds.

There are around eight main sales houses currently– News UK, Mail Brands, Guardian News & Media, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror, Northern & Shell, ESI Media and The Financial Times; merging ad sales is a logical move to gain scale. This excludes regional newspaper publishers and magazine companies.

TV has consolidated into just three sales houses, radio and cinema each have only two major players; all have reaped benefits.

Trinity Mirror is very keen to push joint ad sales and have sounded out Telegraph Media Group, News UK and others.But progress has been mixed. Trinity Mirror has pulled out of 1XL, a joint ad-sales house for digital advertising, in which regional publishers Johnston Press and Newsquest remain involved.

Scott Gill, managing director of 1XL, is optimistic that joint ad sales can take off across the industry, “assuming legality is established and if there is buy-in from the highest levels”, he says.

So to conclude, moving to joint ad sales might be a good idea, but no-one thinks it will be easy and it could be a while up.

If you are interested in including press as part of your advertising campaign, please give our team a call on 02921 320200 or e mail [email protected] # LoveMarketing