Newspaper Consortium Solidifies with New Head Exec

It looks like The Newspaper Consortium, the growing bunch of paper publishers, is becoming more of an official entity. The group — borne of a series of relationships between newspaper firms and Yahoo – has appointed a Tribune man, Michael Silver, as its new executive director.

According to a press release, “Silver will report to the Newspaper Consortium Board of Directors and Executive Committee and begin developing new opportunities for the Consortium across the digital media landscape, as well as to grow the Consortium’s existing relationship with Yahoo across content and advertising.”

Silver most recently served as an independent consultant to Tribune Media Services; before that he was VP corporate development there.

Those following the newspaper consortium, its work with Yahoo, and the emergence of newspaper network quadrantOne, will note Silver’s Tribune connection. Not only is quadOne partly-owned by Tribune (along with Gannett, New York Times Co. and Hearst), its own interim CEO until last week is Tribune Interactive’s SVP of Sales.

QuadOne and Yahoo certainly seem to be in direct competition. But it’s all much more grey than that. The thing is, many if not all of the Yahoo consortium members also have display and video inventory in the quadOne network. The fact that the paper consortium is establishing its own ground as a full-fledged entity, coupled with its ties to both Yahoo’s and quadOne’s networks, means this game has only just begun.