In the ePluribus Media Journal, read about the newest venture from the legacy media corporations: Google News, Yahoo, AOL and the last stand of the traditional Media -- quandrantONE

Already think of Google News or Yahoo! or even AOL News as the equivalent of your national newspaper?

The legacy newspapers can't be too happy about that trend.

Friday 2-15-08, in Media Firms Create ONline-Ad Network, the Wall Street Journal reported on the latest effort by traditional media to fight back: Gannet, Hearst, the New York Times Co. and the Tribune Co. are setting up a stand-alone online ad-sales network called quandrantONE.

As Rick Emonds in his Poynter Online column remarked yesterday,

the business constitutes a vote of confidence that there is money to be made placing national advertising in metro and smaller papers, once the current difficulties of varying specifications and billing systems are eliminated. That has been the pitch of the group of more than 600 papers that are hoping to launch a similar common platform in partnership with Yahoo later this year -- a move some say could boost member newspaper sites' online advertising 15 to 20%. Uncertainty over Yahoo's future probably makes the venture all the more timely and attractive to the four heavy-hitting partners.

In her analysis, Cho suggests that legacy news ad network quandrantONE is about more than just ad revenue. It's also about the legacy media companies most recent foray into to re-asserting ownership of its own content.

Do you agree?