Due to dropping cash flow and revenue, the Tribune Co. will run advertisements on the front pages of most of its daily newspapers. The move to increase ad sales breaks the company's tradition of keeping ads off the front pages of its largest dailies.

The newspapers will soon offer a 1.5-inch strip along the bottom of their front pages to select advertisers, said Scott Smith, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. He did not say when the ad placements would begin.

The Los Angeles Times, the company's largest newspaper, announced over the weekend it would be one of the papers to launch front-page ads. The paper is still determining how much the ads will cost, as well as guidelines for the ads and when the paper will start selling them, said David Hiller, Times publisher.

Smith and Hiller told the Chicago Tribune that editors at the two papers strongly resisted front-page ads, but as the company is still trying to close its $8.2 billion deal with Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, the pressure to reverse declining circulation and revenues is stronger.

“There is real demand (for front-page ads) that will turn into real revenue,” Smith stated in the Tribune article. “But we have to do it with high-quality standards. That's important to both readers and advertisers.”

Although many newspapers around the world already sell front-page ads, the practice marks the dividing line between newspaper journalism's social mission and need for profits, the article states.

“Front-page ads diminish the newspaper, cheapen the front page and reduce the space devoted to news,” said Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Sea in a Times article. “This would be a huge mistake that will penalize the reader.”