Chasing ads, dailies think ‘adult’

On a day when Glenn gives a bodaciously illustrated link to topless UK hunting enthusiasts, I’m inspired to dredge up this article from a couple months back.

E&P: “It’s a newspaper advertising category that for decades has been owned lock, stock, and fur-lined handcuffs by alternative papers. But now increasing numbers of daily newspapers are coyly succumbing to the many seductions of sex ads.”

“‘I worry about the slippery slope of pursuing these ads,’ Hartford (Conn.) Advocate Advertising Manager Greg Shimer said. ‘I want our people to go after auto, hospitals, fashion — the ads alternatives don’t traditionally get.'” Nevertheless, in July “the Advocate began a two-month experiment of slightly relaxed standards — including bigger ad sizes and photographs (although only head shots are allowed) — to attract more business to its small adult-advertising section.”