Broadsheet expands to Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth following the axing of its newspaper
Broadsheet Media is expanding to Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth as it looks to unite under the Broadsheet masthead and take a more national approach to its coverage.
Nick Shelton, director, publisher and founder told Mumbrella the company will be ditching its city-centric approach which sees the platform known as Broadsheet Sydney or Broadsheet Melbourne to just be Broadsheet as it looks to cover more of the country.
“It’s a bit of a re-platforming. At the moment we’re very much Broadsheet Melbourne and Broadsheet Sydney and next month we’ll be just Broadsheet and we’ll be covering Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth,” he said.
The expansion follows the company ceasing to print its quarterly paper, with the July edition to be its last, ending the publication’s five year history.
“After 5 years we’ve decided to evolve the way we publish in print as we develop a national footprint, grow our brand objectives, and look for ways to continue to surprise and delight our audience,” Shelton said on the closure.
“In a few weeks, we’ll be publishing our new hardcover cookbooks in Melbourne and Sydney – each with about 80 recipes from 60 different cafes and restaurants.
“Broadsheet will continue to publish in print for as long as I can imagine.”
The company is also set to introduce a new “rate and review” system allowing readers to leave their feedback on venues, shops, bars and restaurants.
Shelton
“It’s a new platform and what we’re looking towards is a hybrid model of what we’re doing currently which is the editorial approach and then building up the platform side, so we’ve got the directory, but building that out to a rate and review system,” Shelton explained.
As a result of the expansion, Broadsheet is on the hunt for editors in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
“We’ve been building our technology team and we’ve hired a couple of directory editors to head up the rate and review side in Melbourne,” Shelton said.
However the sales team will continue to be based out of Sydney and Melbourne working with national advertisers.
“Our big clients at the moment are Mercedes, Diageo, Wine Co, Holden – so we’re giving them expanded reach,” Shelton said.
“We will do a lot of direct advertising to the local guys but we will be running out of Melbourne and Sydney.
On the decision to expand nationally, which comes weeks after rival The Urban List announced its regional plans, Shelton said Broadsheet had been watching the Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide markets “for a long time”.
“We’ve just been noticing this energy has been picking up over the last year to 18 months in the way the cities are doing things. It’s reminiscent of the energy we saw when we launched in Melbourne and Sydney,” he said.
“We get around 10 per cent of our traffic from outside Victoria and New South Wales. We feel a lot of people who travel to Melbourne and Sydney are using Broadsheet so we know there’s a base awareness out there.”
When asked if Broadsheet would be looking to launch more regionally, similar to The Urban List, Shelton said: “This is what this model is about”.
“We’re moving away to being Broadsheet Melbourne or Broadsheet Sydney. Initially we will be covering these five cities but then we’ll be filling the gaps,” he said.
“So you’ll go to Byron Bay and there’ll be Byron Bay coverage. Over time we will be building up the whole country so there is one single platform publication.”
Miranda Ward
Linkedin
This is not a business plan:
1) Love Time Out
2) Want to be Time Out
3) Copy Time Out
User ID not verified.
I would like to hear why the Average Page Duration on Broadsheet is only 12 seconds according to Nielsen’s September figures.
User ID not verified.