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Northcliffe to launch regional business news websites

Posted: 08/02/08 By: Oliver Luft
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Northcliffe Media will next month launch two websites focused on regional business news.

The new sites are aimed at business communities in the East Midlands and the West Country.

Westbusiness.co.uk, which has been developed as the prototype site, will launch first covering Gloucestershire, Bristol and Bath, with business reporters working on Northcliffe papers in those areas contributing the content.

The new site will focus on breaking news, introduce video reporting, offer business community forums for debate, directories and blogs written by editorial staff and members of the community.

Andrew Merrell, chief business writer for Gloucester's The Citizen newspaper, will take the role of online business editor at launch.

Development of micro-sites on specific areas of interest and a mobile version of the new venture are expected to follow, while sponsorship and advertising will drive revenue.

Ian Mean, editor-in-chief of Gloucestershire Media, told Journalism.co.uk that launching the new site was a 'very exciting' prospect.

"Business is not just a get in get out story, [for us] it's about developing partnerships with people, helping them where we can, being critical but also supporting the community,"said Mr Mean.

"I don't think that newspapers do half-enough to actually develop partnerships around business."

Thisisbusiness-eastmidlands.co.uk will follow soon after covering online business news produced by Northcliffe's newspapers in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.

"We are about to go live in both [regions] with local business sites outside of our platforms because we felt it was an area that we weren't able to give enough focus and coverage to within the existing platforms," Robert Hardie, content strategy director of Northcliffe Media told Journalism.co.uk.

"We felt there were strong communities of interest within local business in those two areas and we wanted to do more for them."

The move is part of a wider group strategy to encourage innovation at a local level. Other Northcliffe titles are also experimenting with new online sites.

Northcliffe's Thisiscornwall.co.uk site is already developing a local blogging platform and The Hull Daily Mail launched a user-generated local site, ThisisYourMail, last week.

A third business site is expected to launch in the South West sometime later in the year.

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