Comcast, one of the leading providers of internet services in the US, has signed a multi-year deal with internet search engine Yahoo! for the provision of web advertising.The move will further consolidate Yahoo!'s growing partnerships intended to provide big media players with web advertising.
The company recently re-launched its Panama web advertising facility, and yesterday signed a deal that saw Yahoo! acquire internet advertising firm Right Media.
These efforts will increase competition with leading search engine Google, which made its presence felt in the market with its acquisition of DoubleClick.
Yahoo!'s deal centres around Comcast.net, one of the internet's most visited websites with 2.5 billion page views and 15 billion unique visitors a month.
The site offers more than 80 million videos and other media to its customers, and Yahoo! will benefit both companies by using its own products to deliver tailored advertising in Comcast's products.
Yahoo! will sell 80 per cent of the ads on the site.
"As Comcast continues to grow its online presence we will monetize our other online sites while driving innovative cross- platform services and creating new business models," said Amy L Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media.
Although Comcast has not so far made precise projections, it reportedly sees Yahoo!'s advertising delivering hundreds of millions of dollars per year in ad revenue.
Comcast is also set to launch Fancast.com, an online entertainment site showing media content from major corporations, which was not included in the site.
Fancast.com currently has a search engine deal with Google which is set to expire this year, prompting speculation that Yahoo! might be well positioned to take over.
