Trends Report

Publishers Must Focus On Audience, Not Content

CNET Networks Partners With Yahoo!, Blazing A New Path For Publishers

July 3rd, 2008
Sarah Rotman Epps, null
Sarah Rotman Epps
With contributors:
Carrie Johnson , Kate van Geldern , Elizabeth Stark

Summary

Since the mid-1990s, the cornerstone of publishers' digital strategy has been to drive traffic to their Web sites where they sell ads against readers of their content. But there are limits to how much traffic a publisher can attract to its own Web sites, a frustrating reality that newspapers, magazines, and digitally based publishers are starting to recognize. To truly thrive in a digital world, publishers need to build their business around audiences rather than content, selling ads to their audience wherever and however they can through any digitally connected channel. Publishers can look to CNET Networks, a 14-year-old online publisher recently acquired by CBS, for a model of what an audience-focused strategy will look like. Starting in July 2008, CNET Networks will sell ads to its own audience on Yahoo!'s properties as part of a partnership with Yahoo! that will generate significant profitable revenue for CNET over the next three years.

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