Gannett Company, McClatchy Company, and Tribune Company, which are the leading three newspaper publishers in the U.S., are developing a national network for the sale of display ads on their websites as they battle to rival more agile Internet companies. Such a network would ease the ability of national advertisers to purchase ads across a range of newspaper Web sites, and they would avoid the work related to making individual deals with each newspaper. Gannett publishes 90 dailies, and McClatchy publishes 32 dailies. Tribune publishes 11 dailies. Gannett Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow revealed that the network, when available, will be open to all and that other companies will be invited to take part under terms identical to those of Gannett, Tribune, and McClatchy. Newspapers are still generally profitable, but have lost readers and advertisers to the Internet and other sources. Tribune investors are urging the company to sell some operations, and last year Knight Ridder was purchased by McClatchy. Conrad Fin, professor of newspaper strategy and management at the University of Georgia, lauds the publishers efforts at cooperation, but would like a more industry-wide collaborative effort. In November, seven newspaper chains (MediaNews, Hearst, Belo, Cox Newspapers, E. W. Scripps, Journal Register, and Lee Enterprises) allied with Yahoo! in a venture to sell classified ads on the Yahoo! recruitment site, HotJobs.