NBR sees 20% growth in online subs, signs top business journo
NBR is ending the year on a high, with strong growth in its online subscriptions and continued investment in editorial staff.
NBR is ending the year on a high, with strong growth of its online subscriptions and continued investment in editorial staff.
Multi-award winning, veteran business journalist Fiona Rotherham is the latest appointment to the Auckland newsroom, following Karyn Scherer who joined the team in August.
Fiona will arrive in NBR’s already formidable newsroom fulltime in February after finishing a stint with business wire agency, BusinessDesk.
She joins New Zealand's largest business newsroom at a time the publication's subscription-based website is enjoying its strongest, most sustained period of growth since its pioneering paywall was introduced in 2009.
Individual paid member subscribers recently passed 4600 and are on track to top 5000 in the New Year, representing 20% annual growth. Those joining include 293 "IP" subscriptions or organisations that provide access to NBR for all staff while they’re in the office (see if your company's on the list here).
NBR also saw its print readership rise by 36% year on year to 41,000 a week, bucking the industry trend.
New website features
Growth has been fuelled by a string of recent enhancements to NBR ONLINE, including a spruced up mobile experience, the new Enterprise IP subscription – which gives the likes of corporates, government departments and universities instant access to NBR's print edition via NBR ONLINE – and a new one-touch audio feature that lets readers play NBR Radio content without opening the related article.
Social media push
The past six months have also seen huge growth in NBR's social network presence, thanks to another new hire, social media manager Anthony Beinart-Smollan. NBR's following on Twitter has jumped from around 11,000 to just over 16,000, and the publication has established a strong presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and SoundCloud. Check out NBR's accounts on those platforms for slideshows, podcasts and more.
You'll also see we've added a live Twitter bar on the right of our home page. It's a great way to follow a breaking news event that's being tweeted in real-time by our @theNBR account.
It's also been a year of solid growth for NBR Radio, which is now serving around 20,000 streams a week.
It's been a big year for NBR but publisher Todd Scott promises it will pale against the web development effort in store for 2017.
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NBR sees 20% growth in online subs, signs top business journo
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