By now you have heard the news that the Tribune Company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it seeks to reorganize its debts. 

I have a suggestion for Sam Zell, Tribune Corp. principal, as he takes this opportunity to re-think how the company operates - Take 5 minutes and try to buy an ad from any one of your publications. Pick up the phone and call The Hartford Courant, The LA Times or The Baltimore Sun. Tell the person who answers the phone that you are an out-of-state real estate developer interested in buying a display ad and then see what happens.

Here is what typically happens to the average customer: the person who answers the phone at the publication will put you on hold for a few minutes while they try to figure out who your sales rep should be. This is tricky because every industry is assigned a unique sales rep and there is no crossover. If you are an out-of-state real estate developer you can not speak to the same sales rep that an in-state real estate developer speaks to. So you get transferred to the only sales rep in the building who can help you and there is almost no chance that this person will anwer the phone. You leave a message and wait. Hopefully, your sales rep isn't on vacation. They call you back a few hours later, or if they are out on sales calls - the next day. When you do speak, the rate card is so complex that it can not be described over the phone, so you need to receive information via email. Once that is received, it is now the advertiser's job to read and understand the rate card and then get back to the sales rep with their advertising plans. 

Compare this to the advertiser's experience with pay-per-click advertising on Google, Yahoo or MSN. The same advertiser can sit in front of the television plan out an ad campaign and by the end of a sit-com re-run be done with it.

At Mediabids.com, we offer a streamlined online system that automates the buying and selling of print advertising. We think that our system offers an economical way for publications to increase revenue. But whether or not Mr. Zell takes my word for it, something needs to be done to make print buying easier, faster and (as mentioned in previous blogs) measurable. Without making changes that impact the ways ads are bought and sold, the Tribune Company, and many other similar publications, will never get out of the current crisis.