Fairfax Media denies claims in The Australian it will drop car classified ads from Drive
Fairfax Media has denied claims it will drop classified advertising sales from the Drive section of its newspapers and said it is still “very much in the listings business”.
An article published in The Australian today claimed Fairfax would retain the automotive brand Drive in content only, as the publisher had taken the decision to “abandon one of the ‘rivers of gold’ that underpinned the publishing business”.
The article said Fairfax the company had made the decision after it failed to convince online car classified ad sites Carsales.com.au and Carsguide.com.au to enter into a joint venture with Drive, citing sources close to the company.
A joint venture would have given Drive the opportunity to continue as an editorial-led advertising platform while the classified ads sites managed its listings, the newspaper reported.
While this would have been an opportunity for Fairfax to resuscitate the business, the company’s approaches were rebuffed by its competitors as a deal would have provided Fairfax with an “unnecessary leg-up”, the article said. Carsguide.com.au is half owned by News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian.
The report followed Fairfax’s deal with British job ad aggregator Adzuna to market jobs under its MyCareer masthead in an attempt to take on market leader Seek.
A Fairfax spokesperson said: “To clarify any inadvertent confusion, Drive continues to be an important brand for us both in content and in advertising.
“Drive is still very much in the listings business and we have no plans to change that business model.”
The Australian had not responded to a request for comment prior to publication.
YET ANOTHER story that The Australian Media section gets wrong.
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..and yet without fail, they respond with absurd levels of righteous indignation any time they judge someone else to have got anything wrong. They’re a caricature
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Yawn….. no one cares either way.
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Its treacherous and UNAustralian… oh no wait…
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Carsguide is doomed to fail.. dealers despise the site and consumers refuse to visit. Ill give it 12 months.
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