McClatchy Sees Better Deal with Yahoo

In a move that could shift the balance of power in the newspaper industry, McClatchy Co. has abandoned a national online advertising partnership with Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. to join a rival group of publishers that is in the final stages of negotiating a broad deal with Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the discussions.

Final agreement on the Yahoo deal, including McClatchy's involvement, could be announced as early as next week, these people say. The network would establish a common online platform among a large group of newspaper Web sites that would allow an advertiser to easily purchase advertising space across multiple newspaper sites.

McClatchy's decision means Tribune and Gannett could be isolated from what appears to be a growing industry coalition aimed at creating an online national ad platform with Yahoo. Led by Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group Inc., the rival group already includes 12 publishers that represent more than 250 newspapers across the country. The group initially struck an agreement last fall with Yahoo's Hotjobs employment site, but since then has been working on broadening that arrangement. McClatchy owns such papers as the Miami Herald and the Sacramento Bee.

The new deal would require that the newspapers in the consortium use Yahoo search on their Web sites. Yahoo and the newspapers would sell ads on each others' Web sites, and the revenue would be shared among the partners, according to people familiar with the discussions. Content from the newspapers in the partnership would be featured on Yahoo's individual channels, such as news and technology.

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