Another Monster of a battle

Online jobsites have taken a significant bite out of the classified-advertising revenues of newspapers. For the majority of US newspapers, help-wanted ads have traditionally been their most profitable forms of advertising. Newspapers have become very protective over their dwindling recruitment-market share, which explains why the Cincinnati Enquirer went to great lengths to block a move by Monster.comís parent, TMP Worldwide, from grabbing more of its space. The Cincinnati newspaper got wind of a proposal TMP made to the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce to create an online jobsite specifically for low-wage hourly help in southern Ohio. The fee schedule for the proposed ChincinnatiJobMatch.com would be even less than that for Monster.com, which is considerably less than newspaper help-wanted ads. The Enquirer reacted quickly, printing ads stating it was the real monster of the Cincinnati job market, registering the CincinnatiJobMatch.com domain name before TMP had the chance to, and launching its online hourly job board a week ahead of TMPís (which is going under the name tristatejobmatch.com). The fight by the Enquirer and other newspapers, however, may be in vain. Online job boards currently command 10 percent of the recruitment advertising market and are predicted to have a 25 percent share within three years.

The New York Times