L.A. Times Takes Web Page Out of Craigslist

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With Craigslist.org and other Web sites increasingly siphoning classified ads from newspapers, the owners of the Los Angeles Times are coming up with a battery of new Web sites and a planned revamp of classified ads on latimes.com.


The strategy by Tribune Co., parent of the Times, to counter Craigslist and other threats to its classified dominance is two-pronged: enhance classified listings on its newspaper Web sites and expand Recycler.com, a Los Angeles-based subsidiary that boasts 100,000 ads each week nationally.


The redesign of latimes.com, which launched in early May, gave Recycler.com a more prominent position on the Times’ online classifieds page. However, ads placed on Recycler which are free do not automatically appear in the print Times or on the main Times classified Web site. Likewise, ads from the print newspaper do not automatically appear on Recycler.com.


In announcing the latimes.com redesign, Tribune officials said they have further plans to upgrade and expand the online classified area, although they offered no details.


Classified advertising inches in newspapers owned by Tribune Co. were down 8.2 percent in the first 17 weeks of this year, compared with the like period in 2004, according to the most recent figures released by Tribune. The company does not break out classified advertising for the Times.


Some of the decline stems from competition from Craigslist.org, which was founded in San Francisco in 1995, launched in Los Angeles in 2000 and now has more than 112,000 local ads for apartments, merchandise, job seekers and services.


“Newspapers are responding aggressively, but I think Craigslist and others will continue to make inroads against newspapers,” said Colby Atwood, a vice president at the media consultancy Borrell Associates Inc., who counts the Times as a client. “The Internet is such an obvious way to post and search for classified advertising that it’s not surprising that more of those ads are going to the online space.”



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The full story

is available in the June 13 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

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