Sunnyvale, California — Striving to regain past online glory, Yahoo and ABC News, announced their “strategic online news alliance,” which was unveiled at the ABC News studios in Manhattan’s Times Square on Monday, to deliver content to more than 100 million U.S. users each month.
Yahoo News is the top online news portal in the United States with some 80 million unique visitors a month while ABC News online pulls in around 20 million. Kicked off this morning on “Good Morning America,” the alliance makes ABC the primary content provider on Yahoo News.
“This relationship will give ABC News an unrivaled ability to reach across the Web, combining Yahoo’s vast distribution and cutting-edge technology with our award-winning journalism,” said ABC president Ben Sherwood. “For years, we have proudly proclaimed that more Americans get their news from ABC News than any other source. Going forward, we will greatly expand this leadership by building a connection with a whole new online audience.”
“At Yahoo, our mission is pretty simple — to be the premier digital media company around the globe,” said Ross Levinsohn, executive vice president of Yahoo! Americas.
“With the combined breadth and depth and experience and incredible talent at ABC we think we can transform the online digital news landscape,” Levinsohn said.
Yahoo and ABC News announced a strategic online news alliance that will blend ABC News’ news-gathering and unrivaled lineup of trusted anchors and reporters with Yahoo News’ unmatched audience, depth and breadth of content. (Heidi Gutman/ABC)
The two companies commenced their alliance by soliciting questions on Yahoo for an interview with President Barack Obama on Monday by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. It will air live this afternoon on ABC News and Yahoo News.
Editorial teams from both companies will work jointly on coverage to appear on both the Yahoo News and ABC News sites. The association includes GoodMorningAmerica.com launching on Yahoo, along with three new online-first video series hosted by the anchors of ABC News. The organizations’ combined traffic will give them 25 million more uniques than their closest rival, CNN.com.
The new collaboration will make ABC News the primary news provider on Yahoo News, providing interviews, stories and videos to Yahoo News’ more than 100 million users. While ABCnews.com will remain an online news site, stories from ABC will also appear on the Yahoo News site.
Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, said his group already delivers 20% to 25% of the video news streams on Yahoo. This new alliance is intended to further expand on their partnership.
“This is not just another content licensing relationship,” Sherwood said. “We want to do something revolutionary, namely change the way people get their news online and who they get it from — the ABC news anchors.”
“The future of news and information is completely up for grabs,” said Sherwood. “The purpose of this association, very simply, is to win the championship of news and information in the future.”
“It is a game-changing day for us,” Sherwood said.
ABC News celebrities including Barbara Walter, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, and Christiane Amanpour gathered into a New York news conference where details of the deal were announced. Amanpour stated she believed the partnership would allow more opportunities to share international stories that may draw more attention online than on the air, while Couric said it would provide greater “luxury of time” to tell stories.
“It is going to be an electric conversation that we are able to have when we link up all of the Yahoo team with our team,” said Sawyer.
No financial terms were released. But Levinsohn said their participation would instantly increase Yahoo’s advertising opportunities.
“What advertiser does not want to be associated with this team?” he said.
Levinsohn and Sherwood said they started discussing working together soon after they started their jobs last year. They dubbed the partnership “Project Gulliver” as they worked out the agreement.
Yahoo once was an online pioneer, a top-tier player in the days of the dot-com boom. However, the company has fallen in the face of competition from Google and Facebook.
Yahoo has also seen its share of turmoil lately.
Analysts have been saying for some time that Yahoo needs to make significant changes if it wants to reclaim its once lofty spot in the industry.
“Yahoo is still a player, albeit past its peak,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “It is focusing on keeping its affiliation by enhancing its user experience. With more and richer content… and, if it abandons the mirage of growing like a tech start-up, Yahoo can run efficiently and profitably.”