U.S. magazine publishers discussing network to sell their online ad inventory

U.S. magazine publishers are finding common ground in preliminary discussions about creating an ad network that would sell their online ad space for themselves, rather than letting third-party ad networks do it for them. According to a story by Nat Ives in Ad Age, the discussions are "very preliminary", but the publishers are serious.

"The ad network is front and center," one magazine executive said. "We're getting killed by ad networks. A lot of companies feel like, as consumer companies with a flood of online content, if we could just create some scale on our own and sell across it, we can get a lot better ad rates."

In a way this is similar to the discussions that are going on among publishers to set up their own mechanism for selling digital editions online, rather than letting Apple do it with its anticipated tablet.

The story said that Time Inc. started its own network believing it would be more advertiser-friendly than so-called "blind buys" made by some of the 500 other online ad networks.

"Publishers are giving away access to their audiences way too cheap," said the unnamed executive. "When you sell to a network you make pennies. I'd rather give that value to the advertising community. If the advertising community or the buyers need something, why shouldn't I provide it to them on my own? The challenge is that each individual publisher doesn't have the scale necessary."