Monday's front page in the New York Times carries a 2½-inch high display ad from CBS across the bottom. Economic necessity, the paper explains in a news story.

In the past, The Times has printed an occasional front-page classified ad — two or three lines of text at the bottom of the page. And a few years ago it began selling display ads — which are much larger and can combine images and text — on the front pages of sections inside the paper.

But The Times did not sell displays on the first page of the first section, a move regarded by traditionalists as a commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper.

They aren't saying how much front page placement in the NYT costs.