The Associated Press said yesterday that it is using Winstar Interactive to sell advertising inventory within syndicated news stories and multimedia features on its Custom News network. Winstar is a unit of Interep Interactive.
More than 450 newspaper and broadcast Web sites are part of Custom News, a private-label network in which AP news appears on hosted pages with the look of the participating media site.
Winstar will sell the inventory mainly to national advertisers seeking the reach that the AP's network of hosted sites provides, though Winstar said it also will group sites so advertisers can target regional audiences.
When users click on AP headlines on a Custom News site, they are brought to a hosted page delivered by the AP, but which appears to be part of the subscribing media site. Ads that appear within AP stories on these pages will be sold by Winstar. The units will be a mix of banners, rectangles and skyscrapers. The media sites will continue to control ad inventory in their frames.
The AP provides content to 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people worldwide.
