Front-page ads to run in four N&O-owned papers

Four free newspapers produced by The News & Observer Publishing Co. have begun selling front-page ads to boost revenue.

The publications are the Cary News, Chapel Hill News, Durham News and Eastern Wake News. The first front-page ad is scheduled to appear Saturday in the Durham News.

Newspapers across the country are suffering through revenue declines as advertisers shift more of their dollars to the Internet. That economic pressure has pushed some papers -- including industry leaders such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times -- to begin selling ads that run in previously sacrosanct space on the front page, or the first page of certain sections.

The News & Observer Publishing Co.'s flagship daily newspaper, The News & Observer, doesn't accept advertising on the front page and isn't planning to do so, president and publisher Orage Quarles III wrote in a note to readers that is scheduled to appear Saturday in the Durham News. This year, however, The N&O began selling ads on sticky notes affixed to the front page -- and has received some reader complaints.

Brenda Larson, publisher of the Cary and Chapel Hill papers, noted that all four nondailies selling front-page ads are distributed for free and rely solely on ads to generate revenue.

"I think we have to determine creative ways to gain revenue and continue to finance this service we provide," she said.

The papers will charge a premium price for front-page ads, said Larson, who declined to be specific.

The front-page ads in all four papers have been purchased by the Mark Jacobson Toyota dealership in Durham, which has made a three-month commitment, said Tim Parrish, classified automotive manager for The N&O Publishing Co.

All of the papers are weeklies except for the Chapel Hill News, which is published twice a week. Each paper will run single-strip ads that cut across all six columns and are three inches high.

Larson said ad revenue at the papers is down because of a drop in classified ads, which includes automotive ads. She declined to be more specific, other than to say revenue is "a little off."

California-based The McClatchy Co., which owns The News & Observer Publishing Co., doesn't break out revenue numbers for individual papers.

Some of the biggest papers in the country are finding new spots to run ads. The Wall Street Journal recently began selling front-page ads. The New York Times began selling ads on the front of its business section in July, and previously sold ads on the front of its Metro section on Sundays. USA Today has carried ads at the bottom of its front page since 1999.

"Newspapers are having trouble making money," said Philip Meyer, a journalism professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. "They have to try lots of different things."

Last week, The N&O said it was delaying plans to build a new headquarters in downtown Raleigh because of the "uncertain advertising revenue climate."

Larson said some journalists at the free papers dislike the move to front-page ads.

"Some say, 'We are disappointed this is happening. We don't like it, but we're going to work with it,' " she said.

But Meyer sees nothing wrong.

"If it helps keep your paper solvent, I'm for it," he said. "You have to pay the bills. Your first duty to the public is to keep putting out the newspaper."

Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit resource for journalists, said he understands the business realities that are pushing more papers to sell premium space that previously was reserved for news.

But Steele said he finds it disconcerting from a journalistic perspective.

"When you lose a chunk of your news hole, it symbolically and substantively sends a message," he said.

The circulation of the four papers: Durham News, 70,224; Cary News, 54,745; Chapel Hill News, 24,614 and Eastern Wake News, 17,296.