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Business news site signs-up 50,000 subscribers

A business news website run by a group of former regional newspapermen is continuing to go from strength to strength according to new figures.

TheBusinessDesk.com has this week reached its latest readership milestone with more than 50,000 registered subscribers across its three regional portals.

Last month, the online-only service sent more than 1.1m news alerts to its readers and its number of registered users is growing at a rate of 8pc each month.

The site, which now employs 12 journalists, was originally founded in Leeds by former Yorkshire Post business editor David Parkin in 2007 and has since expanded to both Manchester and Birmingham.

Said David: “Our growth and continued progress underlines the demand for our core service, namely free quality regional business news and information, delivered through the web, email, our iPhone app or via mobile devices.

“We now have very favourable readership and growth levels that outstrip our main competitors with our audience growing by over 33pc in the last quarter, and, crucially revenues are up by more than 100pc on the same period last year.

“Our move to target the West Midlands region in the first quarter of this year is really paying dividends and we now have a proven business model that is working in multiple locations.”

“With a cornerstone position as the leading business media in the industrial heartlands of the Midlands and the North, we feel we have a great platform from which to grow our business.”

The West Midlands site, which launched in February under former Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves, has 7,740 registered users and is growing at a faster rate than earlier regions during their first six months of operation.

Registrations to the North-West portal, edited by former Manchester Evening News business editor Chris Barry, have recently been boosted by the closure of rival publication and website Crain’s Manchester Business, whose online users are now being directed to TheBusinessDesk.