Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Best Practice Cases
Freedom Communications
Either/And
Freedom Communications (www.freedom.com),
headquartered in Irvine, Calif., is a national privately owned
information and entertainment company of print publications,
broadcast television stations, and interactive businesses. The company’s portfolio
includes more than 70 newspapers, including The Orange County Register, magazines,
and other specialty publications, plus news, information, and entertainment Web sites
to complement its print and broadcast properties. Freedom’s newspaper publications
have a combined circulation of more than one million subscribers. Tom Porter was the
executive that developed the digital edition strategy.
The East Valley Tribune (http://www.eastvalleytribune.com) is a
popular Arizona newspaper in suburban Phoenix. It was the first
Freedom newspaper to have a digital edition. Here is an example of their digital edition:
(http://epaper.aztrib.com/Daily/skins/GetOut/navigator.asp#TOP). The same Web
site and digital format are used by all of the Freedom papers.
Olive Software (www.olivesoftware.com) is a leading provider of
digital edition and digital archiving solutions for the publishing
industry, with more than 250 publishers and 650 titles worldwide.
Olive’s solutions enable newspapers, magazines, and other content publishers to cut
printing and distribution costs, boost online traffic, and create new markets and
revenue streams.
The Challenge
Starting in 1997, Freedom Communications set up a program to bring their newspaper
content onto the Internet. In 2002, they began efforts to create an archive of digital
editions. The challenge today is to bring all aspects of the digital product offering
together to create more value for readers and subscribers.
Meeting the Challenge
Tom Porter is a big proponent of the “produce once, deploy everywhere” approach to
newspaper publishing. In 2001, he selected Olive Software’s technology as the platform
for the East Valley Tribune. He was impressed with how fast and easy it is to generate a
digital edition from their traditional print workflow and processes. Using a well-defined
manifest, the advertising flows right into the digital edition. When it came time to
develop the archive, that process was equally straightforward. They have added two to
three digital editions per year to their portfolio. Twenty-seven of their thirty papers now
have digital editions.

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