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WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - MediaNews Group, Inc., the pending owner of the Contra Costa Times, hopes to harness its newfound Bay Area newspaper dominance on the Internet, with a regional Web site that aims to be a model for how old-guard newspapers can work and make money online.
Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. and its owner, Dean Singleton, are discussing a regional Internet collaboration among its 11 Bay Area newspapers, and also possibly its lone regional rival, the San Francisco Chronicle.
The company's president, Joseph Lodovic, said last month that the company was in "very preliminary" talks with the Hearst Corp., owner of the Chronicle and SFGate.com, about a joint Internet venture that could be run under the BayArea.com name.
It was not clear whether the Web site would replace any of the individual newspaper sites or direct Internet users to the existing sites.
Hearst has helped finance the MediaNews purchase of the Times, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, the Monterey (Calif.) Herald and the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press from McClatchy Co. but will not have any direct ownership of those papers. A Department of Justice decision Monday cleared the way for the sale later this week.
Singleton has noted the region's technology strengths and said there is "no better place in the country to come up with new ideas and new plans in melding online and print than in the Bay Area."
But Singleton has been reluctant to discuss details of those ambitions and was tight-lipped about his plans on Monday, calling any talk about them "premature."
"I didn't say we didn't have a vision," Singleton said. "We haven't formulated it into a plan yet. We'll begin exploring those issues this week."
That kind of collaboration would be aimed at stanching the tide of readers who gravitate to Yahoo!, Google News and other news "aggregators" that dominate the Internet market. A survey released Sunday from the Pew Research Center found that MSNBC, Yahoo, CNN, Google and AOL crush even the biggest national newspapers.
The same survey found that while newspapers' online editions have helped stem more severe losses in readership, they haven't done much to add an audience or compete effectively with their online rivals. Very few people read the local newspaper online only, and when they do, they don't read very long, mostly scanning headlines.
That has made it difficult for newspapers to make money through online advertising. Just 5.5 percent of newspaper industry revenue comes from online sources, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
To draw more traffic, some newspapers have begun to partner with traditional online rivals and develop search engines that let readers easily link to related stories, pictures and video from outside sources.
Local news and information is not enough, said Greg Sterling, an Oakland, Calif.-based media analyst.
"Google and Yahoo have conditioned people. They're overwhelmed by the amount of information online. Search engines have been the only way to manage information," said Sterling.
"If newspapers in a local market can effectively do the same thing, they will have an opportunity really to generate revenue. I think now the recognition is they need to offer more value, better functionality, more content."
Ultimately, the goal is to entice readers and add to the "clicks" upon which ad sales are based.
Some publishers see a future where readers make "micro-payments," a few pennies each time they click on a story, picture or video.
Ultimately, online newspapers will need more than one way to tease money from the Internet, said Bill Mitchell, online editor of the Poynter Institute.
"The idea of news organizations coming to grips with the reality of their readers relying on a variety of news sources and figuring out a way to generate revenue from that reality seems to me to be smart on both counts," said Mitchell.
A collaborative Bay Area news site could be "far more comprehensive than anything provided by any one of the newspapers," said Mitchell.
It also may help cut costs, through economies of scale. The dark side, some fear, is that it becomes a justification for cutting back on newsrooms and competition among local papers.
"The question that's raised by the economies of scale is, what percentage of them would be poured back into the journalism, and what share would be saved for the owners," said Mitchell.
Newspapers are also seeking more from the big Internet news sites.
Singleton acknowledged that MediaNews was in ongoing talks with Yahoo. Such a deal reportedly would package newspaper content from MediaNews and other newspaper companies; the papers could get a cut of the revenue from ads tailored to news searches.
Both Yahoo and Google have recently agreed to "pay-per-click" deals with the Associated Press and other big newspaper companies, marking a shift in how newspapers partner to the big Internet firms that have siphoned away readers and revenue.
Brian Nelson, a spokesman for Yahoo, declined to discuss the negotiations, or the pay-per-click model. He said the company has long struck deals to drive more Web traffic to newspapers or other content providers, or for recognition alongside a story.
"Every deal is different and every partner wants something different," he said.
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(c) 2006, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
