Dallas Observer's Eric Celeste understands why the local daily rejects them, but he's not sure why his own paper is cutting back. Publisher Alison Draper says it's because sex ads are "a managerial nightmare." And Editor Julie Lyons, who thinks the ads are "disgusting," calls Draper's decision to scale them back "the most courageous thing I've ever seen a publisher do."
"It's a newspaper advertising category that for decades has been owned lock, stock, and fur-lined handcuffs by alternative papers," reports Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald. "But now increasing numbers of daily newspapers are coyly succumbing to the many seductions of sex ads." Don't provide a sales rep, jack up the rates, slap restrictions on the ads -- despite these barriers, adult sections in most alternatives still grow like kudzu. Daily papers are beginning to take notice.
Thailand has threatened to cut off relations with the United States beause of an ad run in the Philadelphia City Paper. "The ad -- which depicts [Thai King Bhumibol] Adulyadej as a bling-bling hipster with bleached highlights, lines shaved into his hair, stone-encrusted glasses and a shirt that sports an Adidas logo" was run by a suburban housewife for her restaurant, Howard Altman writes.
Does the alternative newspaper business have a problem in the back of the book? A lengthy disquisition on the subject in Fort Worth Weekly doesn't draw any conclusions, but reporter Jeff Prince finds an "evolution" in the alt-weekly universe, with many papers "reducing the number of adult ads and restricting their size, display, and content."
After a devastating drop in advertising sales in January, the first-quarter of 2002 is beginning to look better at the two major alt-weekly advertising networks. AWN’s Executive Director Mark Hanzlik projects a first-quarter sales decline of 37 percent, up from a more than 70 percent drop in January. Ruxton President and COO Michele Laven has also has seen a slight rebound.
National advertising in alternative weeklies nosedived the first few weeks of 2002. "We're kind of on a shoestring now, but that's how we started," says AWN Executive Director Mark Hanzlik. At least one AAN paper is pulling out the stops to shore up the local ad base: Chicago Reader has restructured its ad rates so that some advertisers now are paying 15 percent less.
The American Journal of Public Health has released results of a five-year study of tobacco advertising and promotions in alternative newsweeklies. It concludes that tobacco companies are using the entertainment sections of the alternative newsweekly industry to target young adults. The study tracked tobacco ads and promotions over five years in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Philadelphia City Paper. From 1994 to 1999, tobacco-related advertising jumped from single digits to more than 300 a year in each paper. "These efforts appear to be bearing fruit; smoking rates are increasing in this age group," the authors write.
Auto advertising has been a tough nut for alternative newsweeklies to crack. AAN News asks ad directors how they won over these conservative, set-in-their-ways auto dealerships. Some say they're getting this lucrative business with a combination of special sections and savvy sales reps. Auto dealers are opening up to the alternative weekly market, but they want familiar relationships and a lot of bang for their buck, they say.
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