July 8, 2015

Trinity Mirror merges North East newspaper websites

Trinity Mirror has announced that Newcastle's Journal newspaper will no longer have a dedicated website.

The regional publisher said it was merging the website, which is attached to The Journal newspaper, with the Newcastle Chronicle's ChronicleLive.

Trinity Mirror said the Journal site will "continue to exist as an archive site but from Monday, users will be redirected to ChronicleLive".

ChronicleLive will cover a patch from the "Scottish border to Teesside, through Northumberland, Tyneside, Sunderland and Durham".

According to ABC, ChronicleLive attracted an average 195,527 unique users last month – up 75.8 per cent year on year. Its total monthly unique user number was more than 3m.

The Journal attracted an average of 14,654 unique browsers per day in May and 357,210 over the month according to ABC.

In a press release announcing the merger, Trinity Mirror said the Chronicle website attracted 23m page views in May, which it said was 25 times more than the Journal site.

Both the Chronicle and Journal newspapers are based in Newcastle. The Chronicle centres its news coverage on the city, while the Journal targets a more upmarket readership and has more readers in rural Northumberland.

Darren Thwaites, editor-in-chief for Trinity Mirror North East, said: “The time has come to add the weight of both our daily newspaper brands to the massive scale and strength of ChronicleLive.

“It means we can accelerate our position as the North East’s leading regional news, sport and entertainment provider, covering more subjects across a wider geography.

“We’ll no longer be competing against ourselves. Instead, we’ll be bringing the biggest possible audience to all our stories using the massive search and social strength of a single supersite.”

Trinity Mirror said: "The website merge does not affect the centre’s print publishing strategy and both The Chronicle and The Journal newspapers will continue to be published six days a week. The Journal will also upgrade its current paid-for e-edition app."