Front page ads coming to LA Times

The following is from LA Observed, an online journal about media in Los Angeles:

Publisher David Hiller just dropped a "mid-year business update" on L.A. Times staffers that has fresh bad news: "Revenue was down 10% in the second quarter, and cash flow down a whopping 27%, making it one of the worst quarters ever experienced."

Hiller acknowledges that readers are turned off by ads in inconvenient places, but one of his responses to declining revenue is going to be ads on the Times front page. Not the small discreet ads that the New York Times runs, but the inch-and-a-half strips the Wall Street Journal sells. He promises standards to ensure they don't visually shred Page

Here's his case for the ads:

* Front page ads will raise several million dollars in revenue, and make a meaningful contribution to improving current trends
* We will make sure the revenue is additive, and not just switched from other pages
* They will help pay for the content we create for readers, and for our investment in new growth opportunities
* They are common at reputable papers across the U.S. and Europe, including in the Wall Street Journal’s much admired re-design
* Space taken (1 ½” strip) and related design issues can be managed
* We will have standards to ensure the ads look good, not schlocky
* If we communicate well, reader reaction should be OK

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