Globe to sell ad space on some section fronts

The Boston Globe plans to sell advertisements on the covers of its Business, Sunday Real Estate, Sports, and Food sections, Globe president and general manager Mary Jacobus said yesterday.

Ad space on the Business and Real Estate sections will be available Aug. 6, and soon afterward on the fronts of the other sections, Jacobus said. ``The front page of the Globe is not under consideration," Jacobus said, nor is the cover of the City & Region section.

The paper is following an industry trend in which the likes of The New York Times have recently launched similar efforts, and The Wall Street Journal just said it would try to sell an ad on its front page. Many newspapers have been struggling with losses in circulation and advertising to the Internet. The result is that the industry has been reappraising policies on where ads may appear. By offering new, prominent locations, newspaper publishers hope to reap premium rates on such sales.

Although many newspapers, including the Globe, have run front-page or section-front ads at various times during their histories -- a small front-page ad in a 1961 Globe suggests ``luncheon" at the Parker House -- the practice makes some journalists and readers uneasy. According to a history of the Globe, the paper stopped accepting front-page ads in the mid-1960s.

The current move to more prominently placed ads ``reflects the business imperatives of the newspaper industry," said Bob Steele , a scholar for journalism values at the Poynter Institute , a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla. ``There's a worry by some that ads on the front page and section fronts can encroach on the integrity and power of the journalism. It's a point worth pondering, but not easily resolved."

Jacobus declined to say whether any advertisers had bought the Globe's new ad space. ``We're currently in discussions with many advertisers," she said.

The ads in the Business and Real Estate sections would be 3-inch-high strips across the bottom of the page, she said. That would be similar in shape and size to the ads recently launched on the business cover of The New York Times, which, like the Globe, is owned by The New York Times Co.

The marketing goal is to provide advertisers with high visibility among readers with high interest in that section's content.

Early results for selling ads on the front page of the Times Business section have been encouraging, Catherine J. Mathis , a Times vice president, said in an e-mail.

Companies buying ad space have included MasterCard, Eos Airlines , and Bank of America Corp., she said.

``Going out to a wide variety of financial services, banking, and business travel advertisers, the advertising team was able to sell every Monday-Friday position for the next six months in 10 business days," Mathis said.

Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com.