The New York Times has finally woken up to a long-known reality of the online world: Adding loads of hip, new media features does not always lead to new revenue opportunities.
The author, Stephanie Clifford, spends most of her piece addressing newspapers' struggles with online display advertising, noting that "large papers" like the New York Times and the Washington Post have front-page CPMs ranging from $15-$50, but sometimes have to turn to remnant ad networks to sell unused inventory.
The New York Times seems reluctant to use ad networks. More often than not, the front page of the Times is loaded with house ads. The inset photo is from the "Today's Paper" front page. Three IMUs ("Interactive Marketing Unit," a standard square display ad block that can also hold video or flash advertising) from this morning's edition are filled with house ads, which may generate a few extra page views for the Times, but nothing in the way of revenue. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- the problem with remnant networks is they often bring unwanted or inappropriate ads into the mix (see An insider's view of Web advertising, from autos to remnant networks)
The Times article also mentions podcasts, but doesn't get into the difficulties involved in monetizing them. They're a completely different animal than display advertising. Not only are they failing as an advertising platform, most programs fail to reach large audiences. Clifford states that newspapers added podcasts and other new media features "in the belief that more features would bring more advertisers," but I think it's often a case of publishers desperately trying whatever cool technologies are being talked about at the moment. In 2004, it was blogs. In 2005, it was podcasts and wikis. In 2006, Second Life was the Next Big Thing. 2007 was the year Twitter became hot, and newspapers began misguided experiments like this one.
Why did so many publications get involved in these technologies? I believe that there's a great fear in the newspaper industry of being left behind as the online world overtakes print. Many editors and publishers feel compelled to launch new media initiatives -- regardless of their utility or whether they can be easily monetized.
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