Riyadh:media

The UK and US-based online publisher The Independent and the Middle East media house, Saudi Research, and Marketing Group (SRMG), have announced a new licensing deal that will see the creation of a series of new websites in four different languages. The sites will offer news, insight, and analysis on global affairs and local events, and will be published in Arabic, Urdu, Turkish and Persian. In addition, each site will feature translated articles from independent.co.uk alongside content from teams of SRMG journalists based in London, Islamabad, Istanbul, and New York, as well as operations teams in Riyadh and Dubai.

The new sites – Independent Arabia, Independent Urdu, Independent Turkish, and Independent Persian – will be owned and operated by SRMG. And all editorial practices and output will conform to the standards, code of conduct and established the ethos of The Independent.

The Independent – which started life as a national newspaper in the UK, has, over many decades, established a global reputation for respected independent coverage of the Middle East. And now the brand has recently strengthened its team. This new project is part of the strategic growth of the title, which has recently expanded its overseas reporting, with correspondents in Jerusalem, Delhi, Moscow, and Istanbul. Further roles in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and Seattle are planned, as well as additional staff in the main London and New York newsrooms, enriching the title’s international footprint at a time when many news publishers around the world are cutting back.

The four new websites – independentarabia.com, independenturdu.com, independentturkish.com, and independentpersian.com – will launch later this year. Social media accounts will be publicized as the services are launched. The Independent will continue to publish its own content, as it does now, in the English language. By 2022, it is expected that two-thirds of the world’s population will be using smartphone technology. And much of this growth will take place outside of the more mature markets of the UK and Europe. For news publishers with a strong legacy and reputation for international reporting, this represents a huge opportunity.

Zach Leonard, Managing Director, Independent Digital News, and Media, said that The Independent is known and respected around the world for the quality of its journalism and the trust and authority it has earned through 31 years. As a fully digital publisher, their influence and reach have never been greater, with a loyal user and subscriber base and a total readership in excess of 100 million each month. He also added that this new chapter brings an opportunity to build on that heritage and increase our reach at a fascinating time of rapid change in the Middle East

Dr. Ghassan Alshibl, the Chairman of SRMG, said that they believed that  SRMG, through this comprehensive partnership forged with The Independent, is growing to the level of its international licensing businesses to a higher altitude. The company’s reach, with this multilingual project targeting hundreds of millions of readers around the world, will be farther, and the audiences will be enormously wider.