News Community Media Launches More Than 100 Mastheads Online at whereilive.com.au

News Community Media Launches More Than 100 Mastheads Online at  WHEREILIVE.COM.AU

- Most comprehensive local online destination for community newspaper readers -

News Community Media, in partnership with News Digital Media (NDM), has taken 105 of its community mastheads online to bring a unique source of truly local news and information to readers under a single digital brand.

In an Australian first, the site, whereilive.com.au, has been 18 months in development and features content managed locally by each masthead, while NDM manages the site applications and infrastructure.

All news mastheads from the Cumberland Courier, Leader, Quest and Messenger newspaper groups are represented on the site.

For the first time at News Community Media (NCM), whereilive.com.au is also represented on a national level by sales teams from both NCM and NDM. Masthead sales teams are selling to local advertisers.

“whereilive.com.au is just what our readers have been asking for,” said News Community Media Managing Director Mark Elgood. “It offers in-depth local news, sports and events coverage plus an interactive and social space for our readers to engage with each other and share information.

“They will also be able to contribute their own news, views and opinions directly to the site, making it something that a community newspaper should always be – a place where the community can come together.” Mr Elgood added: “The depth and breadth of content and the level of interactivity and connection with our readers is by far our most ambitious online offering and like nothing News Community Media has produced online ever before.

“What will not change is our intensely local point of view, quality journalism and photography and providing what matters most to our readers – stories that affect them about where they live, work and play.”

Signalling its move to a significant, unified online presence, News Limited Community Newspapers are also celebrating a new name: News Community Media.

“The name shows we now offer readers and advertisers a tightly integrated newspaper and online environment providing highly targeted local audience reach and a deeper engagement with our community audiences,” Mr Elgood said.

A team of more than 400 NCM journalists, photographers and senior editorial staff create and manage content every day, feeding it to the site.

Each masthead on whereilive.com.au features in-depth local content from the masthead, top stories from the three neighbouring mastheads and the nearest capital city masthead, plus national headlines from news.com.au and The Australian – so with just one click readers can access all they need from across the News Ltd network.

The site allows readers to either join or create their own groups online and write stories for the “Your News” section. There are also reader polls, competitions, thousands of local event listings, blogs and reader contributed photos and videos.

For advertisers, whereilive.com.au allows geographic targeting, from national coverage to state or individual masthead, using a range of industry standard (IAB) advertising formats.