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Eight Johnston Press titles to get digital makeover

Johnston Press has revealed the names of eight daily and weekly newspapers set for an online makeover by the company.

The publisher has recently introduced new responsive websites for the Edinburgh Evening News, Lancashire Evening Post and Yorkshire Evening Post.

Now fellow dailies the Sunderland Echo and The Gazette, Blackpool, are set to receive the same upgrades to their sites in the coming weeks.

Weekly titles set to benefit are the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, Peterborough Telegraph, Harrogate Advertiser, Milton Keynes Citizen, Derbyshire Times and Falkirk Herald.

Th homepage of the YEP post-relaunch

Th homepage of the YEP post-relaunch

The move comes after the websites of The Scotsman, the Yorkshire Post, The Star, Sheffield, and Portsmouth daily The News, saw big year-on-year growth in unique users in January 2016 against the same period in 2015 after undergoing revamps late last year.

The redesigns will offer fully responsive, mobile-first platforms to provide users with a better, faster experience, and improved integration of display and native advertising for readers.  JP is also introducing new apps for iOS and Android tablets and phones.

Jeff Moriarty, chief digital and product Officer at Johnston Press, said: “As with other publishers, we have seen a large shift of readership to mobile devices, and we are responding to that shift through new products that are faster and more usable on all platforms, and with content that is created with the mobile reader in mind.

“We are also pleased that we have new native apps that form a new, important part of our product mix, for both engaging readers, and providing us with new monetisation opportunities.”

25 comments

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  • April 12, 2016 at 7:49 am
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    “New monetisation (sic) opportunities.” If only, pal…

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:03 am
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    Another pointless exercise that will make no money and gain no readers.

    PS I beat Dick Minim and I claim my 0.8p Johnston Press share.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:33 am
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    Wonderful news ,a new makeover for a free web site ,how much more income is that going to bring in,the same as the old site’s did NOTHING.The penny has not yet dropped there’s a saying in Yorkshire ought for nought.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:42 am
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    Harry, look at the times above. I beat you. I’ll take that golden share and raise you a million unique users, all goggling at their “mobile devices” for latest news of the town WI’s Victoria sponge-baking contest. Time to get into the 21st century, Mr B. If I’ve done it at 307, you can too.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:45 am
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    And the content on these sites Moriarty?

    It has got to be better than the current mix of: ‘Supermarket product recalls’, ‘A survey of UK pet owners…’ ‘The cancer risk of coffee’ and ‘Loose change down UK sofas’.

    Some of the above titles (perhaps all of them) are still running: ‘Police training for parents over Minecraft privacy settings’ – in the Politics section???

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:47 am
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    So where`s the mention of the news paper titles getting a ( much needed) makeover?

    Further proof that newspapers and will continue to be run into the ground are the poor relation with all focus and investment being given to the digital news sites.

    With ever falling copy sales,record low ad revenues and the prime resources being put into the on line operations,does anyone honestly still believe that daily or weekly news papers in the uk regional press have a future ?

    no me neither

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  • April 12, 2016 at 8:56 am
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    A new look won’t fool anybody. The investment has to be in staff and content, otherwise its the same police circular, the distant snap of four geriatrics holding a cheque, and the same traffic news as everyone else. Whatever happened to features? Seriously haven’t seen a good feature, originally sourced, leading me to click a link, for some time. And the sad thing is they were done day in day out in the inky days. What gold dust that kind of content is now.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 9:05 am
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    KEN: True, there’s no future for the big corporations, top heavy with bloated and useless hierarchies that do nothing to contribute to revenue generation – why does Archant need TWO digital head honchos, for example? But a future, perhaps, for nimble, 21st century outfits, free of debt and shareholders, and expensive property legacies (that was Local World’s proud claim – now look at it), which generate enough cash to reward employees adept in every area of journalism, from copy to commerce. But there won’t be “employees” in the traditional sense of the word, bodies turning up to sit at the same desks and take orders for years on end, more ’employed entrepreneurs’ looking for the main chance wherever it presents itself. Some hacks will hack it, some not.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    About time the YEP takes so long to load on my tablet it’s quicker to go out and buy a copy!

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  • April 12, 2016 at 10:52 am
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    Ken. Careful what you wish for.
    The JP newspaper makeovers have been pretty disastrous. Usually promises about extra quality and more news, while not having the experienced writers to deliver either.
    JP spent a small fortune outsourcing one round of them to Spaniards, when there was enough talent in-house to do it. My old weekly never recovered from its laughable makeover. Too much Botox (I think that was the word I was looking for)

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  • April 12, 2016 at 10:56 am
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    James Blonde. With you re lack of features. I have not seen one well researched and crafted feature on my local website or inky product in months. My local weekly was once full of them.
    I suspect the boys and girls are too busy filling “write to fit” but not “fit to write” templates or dreaming up click-bait.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 11:41 am
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    Agree @dick
    All across the country those ex RP staff with belief in their abilities and stong connections In and with the local communities are opening up competitor titles to good effect.
    All appear to be capitalising on the things the bigger players have chosen to ignore ; quality local content, getting out and among the communities in the villages, cities and towns and talking to readers,local people and business leaders and giving a real voice to the areas ignored by the others who aren’t staffed up, capable or interested in doing so, from my experience they’re staffed by the better ex regional press editorial and ad people which gives them a heck of an advantage in the credibility stakes as they’re known and respected with no need to puff themselves up or bang their own drums simply letting their publications speak for them, a truly succesful business strategy the others would do well to consider.

    Long may the spirit of enterprise flourish in hyper local publishing and let’s hope the businesses support them having been taken for granted for so long elsewhere giving very much an open goal that new publishers are capitalising on and making good livings from ,unburdened by an excess of staff and multi layered managerial systems who’s sole purpose appears to be to move paper around,attend ‘meetings’ and produce reports and papers to justify what they’re doing and in support of whatever the current flavour of the month might be. Sounds ridiculous but it’s true.

    Maybe I should have questioned newspapers published by the Regional press being dead, certainly other new news and commercial opportunities are thriving.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 12:24 pm
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    When will JP realise there is no point tarting up websites when they’ve cut staff to the level where there are not enough people to keep them updated. The reason James Blonde hasn’t seen features to click on is nobody has the time to write them because we’re all to busy doing whatever can be done quickly to fill space.
    When Ashley starts seeing editorial as an asset instead of an an unecessary cost to fill space UGC can fill, the websites might start improving.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 1:31 pm
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    Mr Moriarty’s latest utterings seem almost as baffling as those of his literary namesake.
    Send for Sherlock Holmes!

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  • April 12, 2016 at 1:44 pm
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    Benefits for Northampton Chron eh?
    It would be far better if it would load quicker and you stop that destructive habit of making the reader click on an advert to enable them to continue reading the article. I and without exception every other person I’ve asked, click to another site when that happens.
    Quite often I (and others) won’t return to your site for a few days after encountering such puerile requirements.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 2:04 pm
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    One of those local newspapers named is mine and I can tell Mr Moriarty he’ll have to do a great deal more with it than tart up the website with a native app in a bid to get more income.

    The ‘new’ content on the website is weeks old, crime stories are not uploaded for days after the information is available on a rival independent website, and the stories are badly written.

    I stopped buying the paper some time ago as it was a waste of money and I rarely look at the website as there is a much better independent alternative if I just want to read police press releases. A very good newspaper has become trash for the bin in the last five years, all down to JP staff cuts.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 4:00 pm
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    Is is just me or is Johnston Press always about 5 years behind everyone else?

    The shift towards making websites mobile friendly has been obvious for a decade and only now do they do something about it??

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  • April 12, 2016 at 4:30 pm
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    To quote ex JP sub. “A very good newspaper has become trash for the bin in the last five years, all down to JP staff cuts.” Not fun if you are in middle of it.
    Cut and paste and apply to hundreds of papers and websites in JP in their rampaging journocide.
    Don’t believe me? Well, share price doesn’t even make ONE PENNY in real money (allowing for conjuring trick of consolidation in 50 blocks).

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  • April 12, 2016 at 4:53 pm
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    Instead of fiddling about with the failed websites, JP should make the effort to increase circulations of their printed editions. This could be done by treating journalists with respect, thus lifting the rock-bottom morale and improving the dire content of the papers. JP’s unfathomable policies (if there are any policies) have caused the demise. Quality papers will attract revenue, circulations will increase and share price will rise. Go on, Ashley and Co, give it a whirl. Admit your failure.

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  • April 12, 2016 at 4:53 pm
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    I agree mark and it’s not just JP, Archant recently made a big thing about their sites now being mobile and tablet friendly which just highlighted how out dated and behind the times they were in the first place,they saw this as an innovative move that would provide a better experience for the user.

    Not encouraging is it

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  • April 12, 2016 at 9:12 pm
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    Why do we need tarted up websites?
    I’d be happy to have some local news in my local Yorkshire JP newspaper.
    Is that too much to ask?
    Why musy 90% come from the larger sister up the road, partly in another county?

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  • April 13, 2016 at 9:39 pm
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    Feature Fan – You’re so right. The templates are an affront to journalism. But the greedy idiots in charge of JP and their ilk neither know nor care.

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  • April 14, 2016 at 10:07 am
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    Hope they do a better job than they have with the bland and boring inews website. They even had to send an emsil to all JP staff with suggested tweets saying how great it is.

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