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Five major newspaper publishers may be ready to create a national ad network that will let them keep all of their ad revenue in-house.

Whisper: Papers Plot Online Ad Network

In gambling, the best money to play with is house money. The same goes for advertising, where even an 80/20 split with a third party ad network like Yahoo may be 20 percent too much to give up for news publishers.

The Chicago Tribune cited sources on the creation of this ad network as aiming for "a common sales force" targeting national advertisers. Gannett, Tribune, Hearst, Media News Group and Cox Newspapers have been named as the ad plotters.

Gannett and Tribune declined to sign on with Yahoo for an advertising initiative that has been partially credited with giving Yahoo's fortunes a slight boost. The Chicago Tribune said the two big publishers did not want to let Yahoo in to their lucrative local advertising business.

Big money brings big egos out in force. Tribune and Gannett rate in the top three newspaper publishers in the US. Rather than take a big slice of the potential ad pie and letting Yahoo do the heavy lifting, they want the whole pie. That's the kind of thinking that has made thousands of potential readers opt for alternative news sources these days.