Nine years after the first UK daily newspaper website was launched, Associated Newspapers has announced plans to put both its national titles online early next year, writes Dominic Ponsford.
The sites dailymail.co.uk and mailonsunday.co.uk will include about 60 per cent of the content from the print versions. But both will also have breaking news and other copy produced by a dedicated team as well as a premium area available to subscribers.
Stacey Teale, currently editor of Femail, will edit both sites. Associated declined to reveal how many more journalists would be involved at this stage.
Associated already has an internet division, Associated New Media, which was launched five years ago and produces four free-standing websites: Thisismoney.co.uk, ThisisLondon.co.uk, Londonjobs.co.uk and Femail.co.uk.
ANM managing director Andrew Hart explained why the Mail titles have waited so long to launch websites: “We wanted to wait until we were confident that an online product would be profitable to extend our brand’s reach to the benefit of our commercial partners and advertisers.”
The Associated move comes as Guardian Media Group prepares to launch new online versions of The Guardian and The Observer. This week it was testing pilot digital versions of the papers which will provide a formatted online copy of the printed version.
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