"I said, 'This is a medium that no one has really capitalized on,' " MacEachern said.
Further inspiration came from England, where video discs now turn up in newspapers routinely. Most of the British publishers have taken a different tack -- distributing movie DVDs as a sweetener to get readers to pick up their papers.
Discs have become so commonplace in Britain's weekend papers that readers have come to expect them, said Larry Pryor, a specialist in new media at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.
Pryor said that the use of CDs also could help U.S. papers save space in weekend papers already packed full with weekend advertising inserts.
Founded in 1999, IMedia went public three years ago. The market capitalization of the 43-employee company, which is traded over the counter, has fluctuated broadly and stood at about $13.9 million on Monday.
IMedia posted a net loss of $572,000 in 2006 on sales of $1.4 million, an improvement over the previous year, when sales reached just $446,000 and it lost more than $4.2 million.
MacEachern said he expected to announce deals with more papers soon.
Assisting with dissemination of the CDs is Universal Press Syndicate, the distributor of comics and features including "Doonesbury," "The Boondocks" and "Dear Abby."
