Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PHILADELPHIA (AFX) - The new owner of Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers said Tuesday it has formed an alliance with Monster Worldwide Inc., parent of the popular online jobs Web site that's a fierce rival of print publications' classified ad sections.
Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC and New York-based Monster will be launching a cobranded jobs site on Aug. 14 at http://www.Philly.com/Monster-- the first such venture between a big city newspaper publisher and Monster.com.
The parent of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News said the partnership with Monster will give employers a broader reach in their search for job candidates. Monster said its own local offerings would be enhanced in a partnership with the newspapers' Web site, Philly.com.
"I think we're going to be able to really dominate this market," said Brian Tierney, chairman and chief executive of Philadelphia Media Holdings. "Number one and number one are getting together."
Tierney said Philly.com is the most popular Web site in Philadelphia, with 2 million unique visitors a month. Monster.com holds a 50 percent market share of online job listings. It gets over a million job postings throughout the year, including 10,000 for Philadelphia.
Tierney said the deal with Monster is good for his newspapers in the long run, since its extensive job listings, resume database and human resources tools will attract more employers to advertise with the site. He's particularly pleased with Monster's round-the-clock customer service.
The alliance spells the end of the Philadelphia newspapers' relationship with CareerBuilder, a print and online classified ads service developed and owned by newspapers to combat rivals such as Monster.
Peter Newton, senior vice president of small and medium business at Monster, said his company's reach in Philadelphia is double that of CareerBuilder.com.
CareerBuilder is jointly owned by the newspaper publishers Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and now McClatchy Co., which inherited the stake in the business when it purchased Knight Ridder Inc. last month. The Inquirer and the Daily News used to be owned by Knight Ridder.
Gannett and Tribune are expected to exercise their right to boost their stakes in CareerBuilder, and a decision is expected in the coming weeks. CareerBuilder officials didn't immediately return calls for comment.
Tierney said he also spoke to Yahoo Inc.'s HotJobs and considered setting up the papers' own help-wanted site, following the steps of The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.
Pricing will remain "competitive," Tierney said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Colby Atwood, a newspaper analyst at Borrell Associates in Portsmouth, Va., said CareerBuilder has held its own and even beat back Monster in several markets.
As such, "most newspapers will be disappointed in this because Monster is a fierce competitor of theirs and this will be seen as strengthening the hand of a competitor," he said. "It could possibly be perceived as treasonous."
But things could be changing soon: Several newspaper publishers have been talking with Yahoo about working more closely together in online classified advertising, particularly with HotJobs.
MediaNews Group Inc., a privately held newspaper firm in Denver, Hearst Corp. in New York and other publishers have been exploring ways to expand alliances with Yahoo, starting with help-wanted ads. Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
Copyright 2006 AFX News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
