ThisIsBritain.com to open gateway regional sites

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Friday 16 April 1999

Three of the UK's leading regional newspaper publishers have joined with Associated New Media (ANM), the new media publishing division of Daily Mail and General Trust in an important agreement to establish This is Britain - a unique portal linking city and community sites across the country with compelling national content. It will deliver the most comprehensive pattern of UK coverage available on the Web from a single hub.

Joining ANM in this venture are Northcliffe Newspapers, Newsquest plc and Trinity plc - which all have online dimensions to their off-line print properties totalling more than 45 local and regional sites. Under the terms of the agreement, each regional site will be branded as either "This is" or connected through a "This is" gateway linking them to the This is Britain portal.

ANM will drive initial design, production, distribution and ad sales for This is Britain. UK Plus, the UK-specific search service, will serve as the portal's exclusive search directory.

David Worlock, non-executive chairman of This is Britain Ltd, says: "This is Britain will benefit from the extensive news, sports, business and entertainment content from ANM's network of leading sites which include This is London, This is Money and Soccernet. We are confident that This is Britain will provide users with the most effective route to the national, local, regional and specialist information they need.

"In addition, the This is Britain founding partners expect to announce early agreements with other regional press operators which will extend the portal's coverage of the UK to a whopping 84 per cent."

All sites on the "This is" network, as well as the portal itself, will carry the successful ADHunter classified advertising services of the regional press, including JobHunter, AutoHunter and PropertyHunter, as well as comprehensive mapping and directory services.

About Northcliffe Newspapers
Northcliffe Newspapers is a division of Daily Mail and General Trust and is the UK's second largest regional newspaper publisher. It's published titles include the Leicester Mercury, Western Morning News, Aberdeen Press & Journal, South Wales Evening Post and Nottingham Evening Post, in addition to a strong portfolio of weekly titles in the South-East, Devon and Cornwall.

Northcliffe's new media publishing activities are led by Northcliffe Electronic Publishing (NEP). Working closely with management and staff at the company's newspapers, NEP has launched a family of successful community Web sites including:

This is Staffordshire
This is Leceistershire
This is Derbyshire
This is Hull and East Yorkshire
This is Cornwall
This is Gloucestershire

Northcliffe's sites are now recording in excess of two million page impressions per month. Additionally, Northcliffe has consistently played a leading role in the establishment of powerful alliances of newspaper publishers in the new media arena. These include AdHunter UK Ltd, the national classifieds database, Quartet Ltd, the online business directory and mapping service.

About Trinity Plc
Trinity is the largest regional newspaper company in the UK and also owns the Sunday Business Post in Ireland. It has market-leading daily, Sunday and weekly publications covering the North-East, Wales, Northern Ireland, Merseyside, Cheshire, large parts of Scotland, South London and the home counties. Its titles include The Liverpool Echo, Belfast Telegraph, Western Mail and the Journal (Newcastle).

Trinity's network of city and community Web sites generates more traffic than any other similar network making it the largest regional online publisher. Its properties include the largest regional online newspaper site - the Belfast Telegraph, which records nearly two million page impression per month - and Total Wales, which attracts one million impressions per month. Furthermore, Trinity is a founding partner of ADHunter and Quartet.

For further information or photos contact:
Clive Savage, Fodor Wyllie Associates
Tel: 0181 541 4082 Fax: 0181 541 1248
Email:clives@fodorwyllie.com