News & Opinion

Rivals to Bedfellows; Telegraph Media Group Outsources Print Sales to Mail Metro Media

The recent announcement that Telegraph Media Group will outsource print advertising sales to Mail Metro Media will have come as a surprise to many with the two having been fierce rivals for many years. After any initial shock however, this move can be seen as the final piece in a pivot from the Telegraph Media Group away from internal generation of advertising revenue having already downsized their Spark content creation department, and with their digital sales handled through the industry Ozone Project.

This will also accelerate the ongoing trend in the print marketplace of reduced campaign by campaign negotiation between agency and publisher, replaced instead by central deals with fixed pricing parameters. As a proponent of the latter model, it is likely Mail Metro will utilise this same approach in handling Telegraph newspaper sales which had formerly been traded in a more open manner.


When considering what these changes might mean for advertisers who use these products, we can expect three main effects:


  1. Reduced agency impact: individual buyers will be able to add less value to the campaigns they purchase as they will operate within a pre-agreed pricing framework

  2. Less benefit for advertisers who come to the market short-term, or with additional volume which they would previously have been able to leverage

  3. Greater importance on clients having strong rate commitments and governance over pricing to ensure they benefit from centralised value pots

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