Comics the next frontier for online newspaper ad revenue?
Can comics become a new profit center for newspapers? Hearst-owned King Features hopes so. The syndicate is launching a new ad-driven portal called Comics Kingdom that will be available for local newspaper Web sites.
So far, King Features has signed deals with the online divisions of The Daily Oklahoman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Albany Times-Union, which served as beta testers for the service. The portal has 1,500 comic strips daily, plus a 30-day archive that readers can e-mail from and comment on.
Comics are certainly popular. The NAA reports that 57 percent of adults read the comic pages in print. The question is: will newspapers be able to derive significant revenue from the new service? It depends on how well advertisers will be able to slice and dice the audience through behavioral targeting and other technologies.
Dilbert and Fred Bassett – those are easy ones. But will soccer mom’s go for the ads served up for Dennis the Menace? Can King Features appeal to urban singles with Cathy? And who really is the right audience for Doonesbury?
