With the New York Times’ publishing divisions suffering just as bad as the rest of the industry, the paper finally buckled down and started selling ads on its front page, albeit as a 1 x 5 basement placement.

While it really served as no surprise to many, including All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka, that the paper had to relinquish some prime real estate for some extra advertising dollars, it does raise a question as to how much of the front page papers are willing to give away.

Although the basement banner placement is embraced in papers across the world, advertising wraps have quickly become the norm in Canadian newpapers. The form factor, which basically wraps around half the vertical side of the front, is personally annoying but I understand it is another innovative way of luring advertisers to the medium.

However, the cake must go towards a series of online Apple ads that have taken over websites such as the New York Times and Apple that truly goes beyond a simple Google Adsense banner placement.

Unfortunately, such advances in advertising will be relegated to the online world, where its animated graphics and utilization of nifty HTML programming opens the door for such out-of-the-box thinking. In the print world, things are more static.

So, how much more of the front page is up for sale? Will larger ads creep up? Will they consume the whole page? Depending on how bad the industry gets (and it’s not looking good, people), I’d wager that we could eventually see a half-page ad be purchased on the Times’ front page within the next five years.

While it will certainly only be implemented for special occasions, it’s doubtful that the paper’s publisher will take a principled stand on the issue when a gold-plated carrot is dangled in front of him. However, it may be very be the last hold out of such placement, especially after papers like News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal will likely be offered the ad first since, well, something of that sort seems to fall inline with Rupert Murdoch’s style.

Photo: The New York Times building in Manhatten. Image courtesy of George H. Mow at AMEC Construction Management.