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NYT Co. Shutting Down 'International Herald Tribune' Web Site
By
E&P Staff
Published: October 07, 2008 8:55 PM ET
NEW YORK Forbes.com reported late today that The New York Times told staff in an internal e-mail Tuesday that the Web site of its sister paper, the International Herald Tribune , will be shuttered. IHT content will now be hosted on the main www.nytimes.com.
This will require "hard decisions about jobs at the IHT," and the company is now looking to "reassign or relocate people," according to the memo.
In an interview Tuesday, NYTimes.com General Manager Vivian Schiller insisted that "it's absolutely, positively not about cost savings." Rather, it's about growth, she said, according to Forbes.
More: "Schiller hopes tying the sites together will increase the Times' traffic--and, significantly for an Internet news business, give it more content against which to sell ads. Schiller also says the move will let the paper better capitalize on the roughly 18% to 20% of traffic coming from foreigners by selling more ads for them.
"For better or worse, at least it's a decision. The IHT site has long been an anachronism in an age where the flagship NYTimes.com was available anywhere in the world. Despite a spirited revamping earlier this decade that gave it a niche among expatriate Americans, Paris-based IHT.com never really got the focus of management in New York or the funding to truly experiment with differentiating itself from the flagship sister site.
"As a result, it remained dwarfed and smothered by its larger sibling. NYTimes.com reached roughly 19.4 million unique visitors in August, up year-over-year from just under 8 million. By contrast, comScore reports IHT.com reached 2.5 million unique visitors in August."
E&P Staff
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