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The Hyperlocal In Practice

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DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2014.900236

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The Hyperlocal In Practice

Marco van Kerkhoven & Piet Bakker

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Digital Journalism, 2:3, 296-309, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2014.900236

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 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE
Innovation, creativity and diversity

Marco van Kerkhoven and Piet Bakker

Local reporting has become an endangered occupation. Print publications merge, close down
or face budget cuts because audiences and advertisers move online. The result is that fewer
journalists are covering local affairs. Online models could be expected to assume the role of
traditional print and broadcast media as they are more flexible and cheaper to operate, espe-
cially in terms of production and distribution. In the Netherlands, we identified 123 hyperlocal
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news websites. We explored how they organized their business, how they were geographically
distributed, what sources of revenues they relied on, and what their editorial strategy was.
Data were gathered through content analyses of websites and interviews with owners. Results
indicate that models are diverse, ranging from fully staffed operations to home-operated web-
sites. Editorial and economic foci differ substantially. Offering local content is not the biggest
problem. Many sites, however, underperform in terms of organization and revenues. Maintain-
ing a site seems to be a bigger issue than launching it.

KEYWORDS content; entrepreneurship; hyperlocal; local news; online news

Introduction
Online local news models could be expected to replace traditional local media as
they were thought to be more flexible and cheaper to operate, especially in terms of
production and distribution. Because the threshold for participation was low, these
media could also use citizens as contributors. In theory, the news gap, the result of the
smaller footprint of traditional local media, could be bridged.
In practice, however, operating a viable hyperlocal business has proved more dif-
ficult than anticipated. The US hyperlocal website Everyblock closed down while AOL-
operation Patch is facing heavy losses. In Europe, hyperlocal networks like Myheimat
(Germany), Het Belang van Limburg (Belgium), Local People (United Kingdom) and Dic-
htbij (the Netherlands) are successful in terms of the number of visits although little is
known about their financial operations. These online hyperlocal news operations are all
part of major media companies or operate a nationwide or regional network, but little
is known about how smaller sites survive. Radcliffe (2012) studied a considerable num-
ber of hyperlocal models, mainly based in the United Kingdom. His research reveals
that there is a high number of very different local websites in the United Kingdom, but

Digital Journalism, 2014

Vol. 2, No. 3, 296–309, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.900236
Ó 2014 Taylor & Francis
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 297

also that there is a high degree of entry and exit and they require a heavy reliance on
volunteer work and individual entrepreneurship.
In terms of content, many independent hyperlocal initiatives seem to be based
on action journalism—campaigning for a specific cause—rather than having a general
news approach. Sites that are predominantly commercially driven are still rather excep-
tional (Thurman, Pascal, and Bradshaw 2012. The advertising model of traditional media
—using banner advertising—is the dominant revenue source. Social media consultancy,
merchandising and events were mentioned as additional sources of income. Some of
the operations covered “are simply tools to help coordinate campaigns, or provide a
platform for individuals to build a portfolio of work for future employment, or a way to
express themselves or build status within a particular community” (Thurman, Pascal,
and Bradshaw 2012, 277).
In this research we follow up on these findings by exploring all Dutch indepen-
dent hyperlocal news sites. We examine closely how they are organized, how they are
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geographically distributed, and the nature of their business model and editorial
strategy.

A Model for Hyperlocal News

American cable TV operators first coined the term “hyperlocal” in the 1980s to
describe local television content. About two decades later, we witnessed the rise of
online alternative local news websites and bloggers (Thurman, Pascal, and Bradshaw
2012). There is no shortage of literature on the promises of those local online news ini-
tiatives. An important part of this literature, however, is normative or technologically
deterministic. Empirical evidence usually is anecdotal. Normative and technological
deterministic thinking can show possible directions for new initiatives. In We Media
(Bowman and Willis 2003) and We the Media (Gillmor 2004), independent local news ini-
tiatives were often referred to as hyperlocal grassroots initiatives. Both publications
focused on how new online models could offer citizens the possibility of starting their
own media by employing easily accessible technology.
According to Radcliffe (2012, 10), there are “many reasons why hyperlocal media
is gaining popularity”. His focus is on technological possibilities, expected audience
behavior and possible commercial opportunities. It is assumed that engaged and com-
mitted citizens will use technology to start blogging or contribute to digital platforms
in other ways.
A recurring theme in the literature on (hyperlocal) news models is that these
initiatives are often a reaction to an (assumed) news gap: the failure of incumbent
media any longer to offer adequate or sufficient coverage of their community (Metzgar,
Kurpius, and Rowley 2011). Recent Dutch research, however, showed that new initia-
tives emerge in areas with many other existing media (Kik, Bakker, and Buijs 2013). Site
owners can even under those circumstances perceive the current offer of local news as
meagre. All new initiatives are a reaction to a perceived market failure. If the market
was judged to be well served, there would be no reason to launch anything new.
Chen et al. (2012) suggest that grassroots Web-based initiatives are capable of fill-
ing the local news gap that is emerging, reflecting the disinvestments of legacy media.
According to Beckett (2010, 11), “independent hyper-local journalism … is a potential
 298 MARCO VAN KERKHOVEN AND PIET BAKKER

amelioration of the drastic problem of declining professional regional and local news
media”.
Local online community news sites launched by entrepreneurial journalists are
also expected to play a role in local democracy (Downie and Schudson 2009). In a
report from the (Lewis 2011), hyperlocals that were funded by the foundation were
described as successfully combining “high-quality journalism” with business and tech-
nology skills.
Thurman, Pascal, and Bradshaw (2012) analyzed the level of audience engage-
ment at the LocalPeople.co.uk sites by surveying users, a content analysis of output
and interviews with 10 “community publishers”. The Local People project describes
itself as a network of websites “for people to discuss issues affecting them locally … to
find and communicate with others, search for local places and services, read and write
news stories and share photos” (Local People 2011). The 400 websites are owned by
Northcliffe Media and Iliffe News and Media and serve cities with populations between
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10 and 50,000 people in the South-West of England and some London boroughs. Each
Local People site has at least one part-time curator, called a “community publisher”.
The study aims to offer insight into “the extent to which this type of ‘big media’ local
news website can succeed as a local social network, reinvigorate political engagement,
or encourage citizen reporting” (1).

Diversity and Contrast

Metzgar, Kurpius, and Rowley (2011) identify six characteristics of “hyperlocal
media operations”; sites should target a specific geographic area, have a community
orientation, contain original news reporting, should be indigenous to the Web, should
fill perceived news gaps and stimulate civic engagement. This definition contains sev-
eral normative elements (having a community orientation, stimulating civic engage-
ment, filling a perceived news gap) that make categorization difficult, as it needs a
careful examination of the goals and motives of the people who operate the sites. A
site that just wants to “make money with local news” would not qualify. Although “ori-
ginal news” can be problematic to define, in this study the focus is on websites that at
least claim to produce part of their content themselves. Aggregation sites can be hy-
perlocal but are discarded in this research. “Indigenous to the Web” means in our
research that we exclude online media that are brand extensions of traditional print
and broadcast media. We include, however, hyperlocal sites sponsored by or set up in
cooperation with other businesses. That could be media businesses as well, as long as
the hyperlocal website does not function as a brand extension, republishing content
from the print or broadcast medium.
Compared to “traditional” local initiatives, new models are often more commer-
cial. Examiner.com is owned by Denver media-tycoon Philip Anschutz, and was present
in 244 markets in the United States in 2012. The site employs “hundreds of professional
journalists” (Examiner.com Media Kit 2012). Patch is owned by AOL (also owner of Huff-
ington Post) and delivered content to more than 800 US communities in 2012 (Patch
2012). The German site myheimat.de covers all of Germany and cooperates with more
than a dozen major regional publishers. More than 37,000 volunteers registered in 2010
(Fröhlich, Quiring, and Engesser 2012). The Belgium Belang van Limburg websites cover
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 299

all 48 municipalities in the province of Limburg. The site recruits “news hunters” to
contribute content (D’heer and Paulussen 2012a, 2012b). At the website, a “combina-
tion of regular journalists and citizen journalists” are providing the content (Bijnens
2012). In the Netherlands, Dichtbij.nl by the Telegraaf Media Group (TMG) operates
more than 80 websites, covering all Dutch municipalities. In 2012, 140 people were
working for Dichtbij (Jiménez 2012).
Commercial issues and how hyperlocals function within the local news system
have not been researched on a nation-wide scale. D’heer and Paulussen (2012a) exam-
ined the content of Belang van Limburg; Fröhlich, Quiring, and Engesser (2012)
focussed on citizen bloggers for Myheimat. Metzgar, Kurpius, and Rowley (2011) cov-
ered six US initiatives. This study focuses on large and established local operations.
Thurman, Pascal, and Bradshaw (2012) explore audience engagement and user contri-
butions, while Radcliffe’s (2012) research is mainly descriptive, mapping the UK hyperlo-
cal landscape.
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Lowrey (2012) uses an “ecosystem” approach for news sites—including blogs—in

two US cities (see also Lowrey, Parrott, and Meade 2011). The model of the ecosystem
is particularly well suited to map the dynamics of online news models in specific mar-
kets and the changing relations between players. It would be possible to study rela-
tions between online models (links, aggregation, content curation and sharing), how
they compete for advertisers, use sources and target audiences. This approach, how-
ever, is too elaborate for our study as we compare hyperlocal models in more than 100
markets. We will, however, investigate relations between media and other players in
the local market.
Similar studies on hyperlocal news—but without a longitudinal ecosystem
approach—have been conducted in Chicago (Churchill and Ubois 2009), Baltimore (Pew
Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2010) and Seattle (Fancher 2011).
In contrast to our research, these studies focus on large US markets.
Remez (2012) found that American hyperlocal nonprofit websites have various
revenue sources: grants, donations, sponsorships, selling content and providing ser-
vices. Nee (2013) explored how journalists who lead hyperlocals see digital and social
media as part of their strategy of convergence, and how they use these to connect
with consumers. Respondents indicated that they experienced more freedom to experi-
ment with technology.
Naldi and Picard (2012) studied three local news sites. The authors show that the
pre-existing expectations and experiences of owners can play a decisive role in the
future of a website. Owners can have a very clear idea about what they want with a
news site—usually in line with their past experiences—but adapting to the market and
changing the model seems to be much harder; “formational myopia” according to the
authors.
In respect to the literature reviewed, we focus on independent news websites
that target specific local areas. We discard sites targeting a specific audience—sports,
health, music or technology. We do not narrow our research to grassroots or citizen ini-
tiatives; businesses, non-profit organizations, groups or individuals can operate hyperlo-
cal sites; these sites are all included in our study. We investigate content, business
model, ownership, organization and technology.
 300 MARCO VAN KERKHOVEN AND PIET BAKKER

Method
Our research covers all models in one country. Based on research conducted in
2012 by Kik, Bakker, and Buijs (2013), we identified all digital media in every Dutch
municipality. The online platforms of newspapers, weeklies, and local or regional broad-
casters are discarded, as were aggregation sites that only contained news scraped by
robots from other sites. The original research was conducted by searching (using
Google) for keywords “nieuws” (Dutch for “news”) and the name of the municipality.
The first 30 results were checked.
All websites were visited again in 2013—some of the operations had closed
down, were inactive for at least a month, or changed from news site to aggregator. We
identified 350 sites, operated by 123 different businesses or organizations, covering 199
municipalities, meaning 1.8 sites per municipality. Thirty-five owners operated more
than one site; on average these “chains” owned 7.5 different sites (Figure 1).
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Every site was coded for ownership, “about us” and contact information, advertis-
ing rates, content categories, staff information, number of advertisements and number
of articles, subject of articles, source of articles, social media and the frequency of post-
ing. When questions remained, the site owner was contacted by mail or phone. From
the chains we selected one site, when possible the largest, first or most important site
(for instance, where ownership was based).

Results
Ownership
Almost half of the Dutch municipalities have one or more local news sites
(Figure 1); the majority (262) are operated by owners of more than one local website.
The “chains”, however, are usually rather small: 26 chains operate 10 sites or less; nine
chains are bigger, but only two consist of 20 or more sites (Figure 2). There is, in other

FIGURE 1
Municipalities, businesses and local websites
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 301

FIGURE 2
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Number (#) of sites per “chain”

words, already some consolidation in this area, with a number of major players and
many one-man bands.
Seventy percent of the sites (86) contained some sort of information on the pur-
pose of the operation. After mail and telephone contact, we obtained ownership infor-
mation for 101 sites: 60 had individual (personal) ownership, 41 sites were owned by a
company (Table 1).
For 43 sites we could assess the number of people involved; this included full-
time employed staff members, part-timers and volunteers. Other sites were individual
operations or would not provide this information. Almost all of these sites worked with
volunteers or people employed only part-time; a small staff team (two to five people)
was the dominant model (Table 2). Organizations with more people often operated
more websites (the “chains”).

TABLE 1
Ownership and information (123 local models)

Sites with ... N %

Information “about us” on site 86 70

Site ownership 101 82
Individual ownership 60 49
Business ownership 41 33
No ownership reported 22 19

TABLE 2
Number of employees/volunteers (43 local models)

Sites with ... N %

1 14 33
2–5 19 45
6–10 6 14
11 or more 3 7
 302 MARCO VAN KERKHOVEN AND PIET BAKKER
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FIGURE 3
Local sites per year founded

Usually, every operation has at least one or two people with a journalistic back-
ground working for the site:
I have been a freelancer for 20 years. The [two] others don’t have a journalistic back-
ground.
We come from ICT, others are committed citizens and journalists.
I have been a journalist for 40 years.
I was a publisher of free weeklies.

Half of the operations (66) were more than five years old with some going back to 1997.
From 2007 on, more than 10 news sites were launched every year (Figure 3). We cannot
say anything about “growth” because we have no data on sites that closed. Comparing
the 2012 and 2013 data, however, we did find some sites that closed within a year.

Regional Distribution
Local news sites are unevenly distributed over the 12 Dutch provinces. Friesland
and Zuid-Holland have more than 70 different sites, Limburg, Flevoland and Drente less
than 10. But as the population is also very unevenly distributed, a comparison based
on the number of municipalities would be better because we are interested in how
these local communities are covered—how many local websites on average cover a
municipality in a province?
Friesland leads when the number of websites per municipality is taken into
account: almost three websites per municipality. Also the small province of Zeeland has
a high number of hyperlocal websites per municipality. The “middle” group, Zuid-Hol-
land to Utrecht has (almost) one website per municipality; all other provinces score
below that (Figure 4).
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 303
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FIGURE 4
Distribution of sites per province

The research by Kik, Bakker, and Buijs (2013) also revealed a high number of
media in general in Friesland. In their research they found a relationship between the
number of traditional media and the number of independent online media. In other
words: online media can be found where there are also other media, they need a mar-
ket and probably news from other media as well. In 2012, Friesland was the only prov-
ince with two independent newspapers; also a number of independent broadcasters
are based in that province. The widely held presumption that new online initiatives
emerge where other media fail (i.e. as a consequence of market failure), was not dem-
onstrated.

Content
It is perhaps unsurprising that visitors can find a category “News” on a local
website (on 80 of the sites), but more counterintuitive is the finding that less than 30
percent of the sites have a “Video” or “Photo” section (Table 3). Producing original
audio-visual content is expensive; which could explain this finding. Almost all sites,
however, have several other categories.
Ninety-five percent of the sites contained at least one news item that was posted
in the last week. The average number of news items per day during the last week was
3.9. Nine sites post more than 10 news items on average every day (measured for a
7-day week). More than half of the sites (66) offer users between one and five items per
day; 24 sites contain less than one item per day (Table 4).
“Politics” was the most popular topic when the most recent 10 items were sur-
veyed; 98 sites contain political items, with an average of almost two items per day.
 304 MARCO VAN KERKHOVEN AND PIET BAKKER

TABLE 3
Content categories (123 local models)

Sites with … N %

News 99 80
Video 36 29
Columns 20 16
Dossiers 20 16
Photo 36 29
Other 118 96

TABLE 4
Content frequency (123 local models)
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Sites with ... N %

Recent news (last week) 117 95

Average number of items per day 3.9
Number of sites with (items per day)
More than 20 per day 2 2
Between 11 and 20 per day 7 6
More than 5, less than 10 per day 18 15
More than 1, less than 5 per day 66 54
One or less 24 20
No recent news items 6 5

Also “Crime and accidents” (911-news) with an average of 2.5 per day, “Human inter-
est”, “Business and organizations”, “Culture” and “Sports” were popular (Table 5). We
find 20 percent of these local sites without political news, mostly because there are
eight sites totally devoted to 911-news (i.e. stories focused on the activities of emer-
gency services and typically sourced from these services) and 18 sites with more than
half of the items devoted to these issues.
More than 100 sites state that they produce their own content, 30 percent use
aggregated content and content from partners. On average 6 out of 10 items are origi-
nal productions according to the sites themselves—whether this claim was reflected in
the offer of genuine original production was not checked (Table 6).

TABLE 5
Subjects—last 10 items (123 local models)

Sites with ... N % Average

Politics (all subjects) 98 80 1.9

Crime and accidents 80 65 2.5
Human interest 54 44 0.9
Business and organizations 62 50 0.9
Culture 83 67 1.6
Sports 43 35 0.7
Non-local 23 19 0.4
Other 51 41 0.8
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 305

TABLE 6
Sources of news—last 10 items (123 local models)

Sites with ... N %* Average number of items

Own production 101 82 6.1

Aggregation 39 32 1.2
Partners/other 38 31 1.2
Unknown 33 27 1.4

*
Total can exceed 100 percent as more answers were possible.

More than 100 of the 123 sites have a Twitter account but only 85 (69 percent)
offer users the opportunity to share stories by offering a “Tweet this” button. Eighty
sites (65 percent) have a Facebook account, but only 55 have a “Like” button under
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stories. Thirty-five sites have a registration option; users get options like submitting
comments and contributing content (Table 7).

The Chains
Chains could be expected to be more professional in terms of staff, advertising
sales and technology. The overview (Table 8) shows why Friesland is so well served. No
less than four chains are active in this province. Also Zeeland (two chains), Zuid-Holland
and Noord-Holland have more than one chain of local news websites. More than half
of the provinces have no chains at all—two chains, however, operate on a national
level.
Chain websites differ from stand-alone sites. They use Twitter and Facebook more
often, in particular the provision of a “Tweet this” option and the “Like” button. The
majority have a registration opportunity (average for all sites 28 percent) so users can
contribute content. The number of advertisements is somewhat lower but more evenly
distributed. Chains also produce more news themselves while they publish 5.6 news
items per day (3.9 on average for all sites).
Six chains cover only or mainly 911-news (112 in the Netherlands), meaning news,
pictures and video on accidents, crimes and fires. As they use police and fire brigade
information as their main source, only accidents and crimes themselves are reported,
hardly any arrests and almost never any court cases.

TABLE 7
Contact/social media (123 local models)

Sites with ... N %*

Registration option 35 28
Twitter account 103 84
Tweet this... 85 69
Facebook account 80 65
Like button 55 45

*
Total can exceed 100 percent as more answers were possible.
 306 MARCO VAN KERKHOVEN AND PIET BAKKER

TABLE 8
Chains (more than five editions) per province

Number of sites Province

Wâldnet† 7 Friesland
It Nijs 27 Friesland
HvNieuws† 27 Friesland
Harlingen online 5 Friesland
112 Brabant Nieuws† 6 Noord-Brabant
GooiNieuws 6 Noord-Holland
Vandaag.nl* 8 Noord-Holland
112ijmond† 5 Noord-Holland
023 Magazine 5 Noord-Holland
Salland Centraal 6 Overijssel
112Vallei† 18 Utrecht
Zeeuwseregio.nl 13 Zeeland
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HVZeeland† 13 Zeeland
Voorne-Putten 5 Zuid-Holland
VOL|NIEUWS 15 Zuid-Holland
Sleutelstad 10 Zuid-Holland
Ambacht NET, etc. 5 Zuid-Holland
nieuws.nl 12 National
Dichtbij* 20 National

*
Both Vandaag and Dichtbij are owned by TMG, the largest Dutch newspaper publisher;
Vandaag uses material from regional newspapers but is not marketed as a brand extension;
Dichtbij sometimes exchanges content with local free weeklies from TMG.
†
911-sites (accidents, crimes and fires).

Dichtbij.nl, with more than 80 websites, each covering several municipalities, is

the most ambitious Dutch hyperlocal network. It covers the whole country although
not all websites have an editorial team. Sites without editors—or “community editors”
as they are called—use aggregation (scraping by robots) as a content strategy.

Discussion
The results could give the impression that many websites are poor performers;
they have not engaged with social media, do not have sufficient advertising, lack origi-
nal news or publish hardly any news. But what we see is actually a very mixed picture.
On the one hand, a true entrepreneurial spirit is evident which seizes opportunities
wherever they are, sometimes half-heartedly but mostly with initiative and enthusiasm.
On the other hand, we see a permanent underperformance: sites with no contact infor-
mation, sites with advertisements but no information about how to place them, sites
with few or no advertisements. Even the site with 83 advertisements does not seem to
be an example of a sound business model; it makes no sense to have an endless chain
of banners on a site.
We also see underperformance in terms of social media use. Sites have a Face-
book account but offer no opportunity to share stories; sites without a Twitter account
or without the opportunity to tweet stories. Facebook and Twitter are actually very effi-
cient ways to steer traffic to websites—a missed opportunity for a substantial number
 THE HYPERLOCAL IN PRACTICE 307

of sites. Also registration (contributing content) is missing at the majority of the sites.
Thurman, Pascal, and Bradshaw (2012) also found a digital skills gap, but training to
acquire the necessary skills was in general not available. One of their conclusions, that
the sites they studied lag behind “in terms of engagement with users” (277) could be
partly related to this lack of technological skills.
The underperformance argument tends to overlook the difficult situation many
sites are facing. The economy is problematic, advertising rates are low while the com-
petition is fierce. With this in mind, it is also possible to argue that many sites are per-
forming quite well. Apparently these owners are surviving under difficult circumstances
—and with a true entrepreneurial spirit.
Other studies also show a high number of local news websites, a high diversity
among those sites, and a high level of entry and exit (Churchill and Ubois 2009;
Fancher 2011; Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2010; Radcliffe
2012). Issues concerning commercial operation and funding are also well documented
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(Metzgar, Kurpius, and Rowley 2011; Lowrey 2012; Naldi and Picard 2012; Radcliffe
2012).
We see, however, a rather good performance in terms of local content—promi-
nant for all models—and a substantial share of original content. The actual problems
seem to be in other areas—notably running a sustainable business in the long term.
Our study suggests that hyperlocal news websites are both promising and vulnerable.
There is a potential to grow, but depending on a very small staff could seriously
hamper development. Continuity could be a real problem while change might be diffi-
cult. Naldi and Picard (2012) state that site owners all had to rethink their business
model after a while; which actually seemed to be harder than the launch itself. Chang-
ing a site (navigation, focus, business model, staff), adapting to new market circum-
stances (competitors, advertising), new audience behavior (social media use) and
funding (investors, advertising sales, sponsoring) is not only needed but also not really
possible for most “one-person operations” as the knowledge and skills needed for such
a switch might not be available. This could also explain why chains perform somewhat
better on some issues; a team is better suited to organize and implement change.

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Marco van Kerkhoven (author to whom correspondence should be addressed),

Utrecht School of Journalism, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, The
Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. Web: http://www.journalism
lab.nl/author/marcovankerkhoven/.
Piet Bakker, Utrecht School of Journalism, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht,
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The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. Web: http://www.journalismlab.nl/

author/pietbakker/

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