The Liverpool Daily Post is launching what is believed to be the
first dedicated business website by any UK regional newspaper.
www.TheBusinessweek.co.uk carries
breaking stories, daily podcasts, live updates on the FTSE 100 index and many
other features designed with the newspaper's influential business readership in
mind.
The free-to-access website is one of the first developments to
take advantage of Trinity Mirror North West and North Wales's £1.5m
Transformation Project. The investment enables traditional newsrooms to create
media-neutral content which is as suitable for digital platforms, such as
websites, as it is for print.
Other features on the site, which goes live today (Monday May
8), include a video debate on the issues affecting local companies, a
business-to-business directory, and a comprehensive archive.
Liverpool Daily Post Editor Jane Wolstenholme said:
"Businessweek, our weekly in-paper supplement, is already firmly established as
an indispensable read for the region's business community. Offering it to them
in this format - with so many extra features - is something we believe there is
a huge appetite for."
TheBusinessweek.co.uk will stand alone but is built around the
company's successful icLiverpool portal, which currently attracts around 1.5m
page impressions a week.
The move comes as Trinity Mirror continues to develop its
digital portfolio across the UK, with the aim of becoming a true multi-platform
publishing and advertising business.
The North West's Transformation Project involved the
introduction of a version of Tera UK's GN3 editorial system, which was
significantly re-engineered by the Trinity Mirror team to meet the growing
demands of the emerging digital media marketplace.
Business coverage is one of the cornerstones of the Liverpool
Daily Post. Its business team has won countless awards - with both Business
Editor Bill Gleeson and Deputy Business Editor Tony McDonough having been named
as Press Gazette's Business and Financial Journalist of the Year in recent
years.
A major NOP survey* has revealed that a quarter of the
newspaper's readers are in the highest AB social grade, with one in five of its
working readers the key decision-maker in company purchasing decisions, and half
of them having some involvement in these decisions.
Almost three fifths of Daily Post readers now have internet
access, with 17% of the remainder likely to start using it in the next 12
months.
*Source: GfK NOP Jan-Jul 2005; Base: All adults 15+ in Trinity
Mirror Merseyside 10% area
