WEEKLIES LOOK TO EAT DAILIES' LUNCH

By: Lucia Moses Help-wanted Ads Get Attention From Alternative Chains



Today's tight labor market is driving employers in search of workers to
all kinds of nontraditional media, including alternative newspapers.



It's not just bartender- and musician-wanted ads anymore. The youth-

oriented weeklies are getting ads from banks and computer companies.



'Five years ago, you were lucky if you could talk to a recruiting
agency,' said Carl Ferrar, classified director for the Dallas
Observer. Now, alternatives are considered viable, and papers such
as the Observer have made a big push into want ads.



Jumping on this trend, the New Times chain, parent of the
Observer and 10 other papers, began selling recruitment ads
across the group a year ago.



The other major alternative newspaper group, Village Voice Media, is
planning a similar initiative for its eight papers, while the
industry's trade association is exploring the formation of a national
recruitment ad network that would offer multipaper buys.



'There's a growing sense in the business that we're leaving a lot of
money on the table,' said Richard Karpel, executive director of the
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN). 'Employers are looking
for young, technically savvy people. These are the kinds of people that
read our papers.'



Overall, alternatives reaped about $90 million in classified ads in
1999. That's a mere sliver of the estimated $18.6 billion in
classifieds that daily newspapers took in during that period.

'The Sunday [issues of daily] papers are fat with classified ads,'
Karpel said. 'If we take 5% to 10% of that, all of a sudden we're
making a huge impact on our business.'



Arthur Howe, president of Village Voice Media, which includes The
Village Voice in New York and LA Weekly, believes that want
ads hold great potential. 'I think employers are finding out that daily
newspapers are not connecting them as efficiently as they once did,'
Howe said. 'I've spoken to recruitment agencies, and they're very
interested in doing better, and they're very willing to pay for it and
try new media.'



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Lucia Moses (lmoses@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor for

Editor & Publisher magazine.











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