Many of the UK’s national newspapers have reportedly joined forces to seek a solution for declining online advertising revenue.
The publishers of the Guardian, Sun, Times, Mirror, Express, Star, Telegraph and Mail newspapers are undertaking a feasibility study named ‘Project Juno’.
Rising online audiences are failing to offset the falling ad revenue income, with adspend on the nationals expected to shrink by 10.1 per cent this year, according to the Advertising Association/ Warc Expenditure Report.
That is despite the fact that overall internet adspend is expected to grow by 12.3 per cent, with Google and Facebook recently announcing big increases in revenue thanks mainly to mobile advertising.
Project Juno will be chaired by Steve Booth, a former advertising chief executive, according to City AM.
“The newspaper industry has been overly competitive within itself,” Booth told the paper.
“And it would more likely be able to face its more obvious competition if it were united in its approach.”
“Print has fallen out of fashion with advertisers to an extent. And the view is that were we to come together, were the newsbrands to come together, could we better present the opportunities for advertisers afforded by the assets of those news brands?”
Booth said that as well as representatives from each publishing group, there will be input from economic, legal and research experts.
He added: “Our view is we have highly valuable, quality, engaged audiences that in many respects are superior to other media types.
“It’s our belief that were we able to come together, speak as one voice, and actually be able to deliver as a one-stop shop then the commercial fortunes of the news brands would be better served, and those of advertisers as well.”
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