Asheville Citizen-Times Media Group has announced that, beginning on February 9, they will launch an expanded newspaper, giving readers more local stories and a new national news section from USA TODAY. The new USA TODAY local edition is an integrated effort created with support from U.S. Community Publishing (USCP) and USA TODAY. The new product will provide expanded national news, money, sports and life content and will allow the local newsroom to heighten focus on deeper community coverage.
The enhanced local edition will serve as the primary source for national and international news within the Asheville Citizen-Times. The USA TODAY local edition adds more than 60 pages of content to the paper per week, providing expanded national news, money, sports and life content. In turn, the local news team at the Citizen-Times will be able to heighten focus on local coverage, which will move to the front section of the paper and be provided additional space.
“We are taking the strengths of the two papers and combining them to deliver the best of both worlds to our consumers,” said Dave Neill, publisher, Asheville Citizen-Times. “We continue to listen to our readers. They want more local coverage and this partnership will allow us to use our valuable resources to deliver just that.”
“We are excited to expand this partnership with USA TODAY to deliver our readers more of the local content that is so important to them, while also providing quality, trusted international and national news from USA TODAY,” said Robert Dickey, president, U.S. Community Publishing. “We were thrilled by the positive feedback from our pilot markets and look forward to expanding this offering to the rest of our dedicated subscriber base and continue to deepen our relationships with the Asheville community.”
This partnership with USA TODAY was piloted with four Gannett media properties within the U.S. Community Publishing portfolio in early October. We look forward to rolling this out to our remaining markets by mid-2014.