Been doing a bit of research lately on what newspapers are charging advertisers to publish online. Answer? Very generally, using the standard of CPM (Cost per thousand of impressions), they seem to be ranging from $1 CPM to $65 CPM, with the Wall Street Journal at that high end and most major metro papers in the $20-$35 CPM range.

Couple of thoughts:

A.) Could newspapers make their rate cards any more confusing and intimidating?

First you've got to figure out what CPM and ROS CPM vs. Targeted CPM means and then cross examine the paper's traffic reports (if they provide them) with the rate cards to try and figure out how many impressions (think television viewers) you should go for. And you've got to be careful to catch the fine print, which may tell you you need a minimum buy. So the least you can pay for a CPM of $25 for 25,000 impressions is $650. ..... In other words, if I were a real advertiser, I would have given up trying to understand all of this within five minutes of downloading the rate card.

B.) Adding all kinds of inventory (space for the sake of space) to news web sites seems like one of the dumbest strategies ever.

Why make readers click four times to read an entire story? Or make a slideshow that forces readers to click 10 times through a top 10 list? To sell more ads! .... But it seems all they are doing is driving down the price of the ads they are selling. i.e., More supply = cheaper product. Wouldn't limiting the amount of space on a site mean better profits and less work for employees?

C.) Oh, those online ads are ugly.

Anyone work on the advertising side of things or sell their own ads for their own blog or web site? Why do you charge what you charge for online ads? Love to get a discussion going!