RALEIGH, N.C., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today, the Real Cities Network (http://www.realcities.com/) announced the addition of two new sites to its fast-growing national advertising network of local newspaper websites: http://www.statesman.com/ and http://www.austin360.com/ in Austin, Texas. Nielsen/NetRatings custom research for January 2007 shows that Real Cities reaches more than 31 million monthly unique visitors representing 20 percent of the active internet population.
"As we continue to add strategic partners to the Real Cities Network, it will only make it easier for national advertisers to access high quality local audiences from a single source," said David Fitzpatrick, vice president of sales for the Real Cities Network. "The addition of Statesman.com and Austin360.com further strengthens the network in Texas and gets us off to a great start in 2007."
"We've seen what Real Cities has done with its other partners," said Jim Debth, Statesman.com general manager. "We are always looking for ways to help national advertisers reach this unique Austin market. We look forward to the Real Cities partnership and what we can do together here in Central Texas."
The Austin American-Statesman's family of websites -- including Statesman.com, Austin360.com, and Statesmanclassifieds.com -- receives more than 20 million page views per month. Statesman.com is the leading and most visited local news and information website in Austin; Austin360.com is the area's top entertainment site. Together, the Austin American-Statesman brands are Central Texas' top news, entertainment, shopping, and information sources, reaching two out of three adults in the Austin area each week.
The Real Cities Network includes newspaper websites owned by Advance Internet, Belo Corp., Cox Newspapers, Inc., Hearst Corp., The McClatchy Company, Media General, MediaNews Group, Scripps and others.
About Statesman.com, Austin360.com and Cox Newspapers, Inc.:
Owned and operated by Cox Newspapers, Inc., the Austin American-Statesman is the major daily newspaper for Austin, the capital city of Texas. The American-Statesman won 11 first-place awards in Cox's "Best of Cox Awards" in 2006.
Statesman.com/Austin360.com won the 2007 Digital Edge Award for "Best Design and Site Architecture" (in the 75,000 to 250,000 newspaper circulation category) from the Newspaper Association of America in January. Statesman.com was also a finalist in the "Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling" category. The site was a finalist in the 2006 EPpy Awards competition for "Best Overall Design" of an internet service with fewer than 1 million unique monthly visitors. Along with Austin360.com, Statesman.com was an official honoree in the 2006 Webby Awards.
Cox Newspapers, Inc., is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, a diversified media company whose divisions include newspaper publishing, television and radio broadcasting, cable systems, internet business, and automotive web technology and publications. Today, Cox is a top 10 nationally ranked player in every major category where it competes. Cox operates 300 separate businesses and has 80,000 employees throughout the United States and abroad. For more information on Cox Newspapers, Inc., visit http://www.coxnews.com/.
About Real Cities:
The Real Cities Network is the largest national network of local websites and is operated by McClatchy Interactive. More than 130 newspapers are members of the network, representing some of the largest newspaper companies in the industry and more than 80 DMAs. McClatchy Interactive is a division of The McClatchy Company , the third largest newspaper company in the United States (after the sale of the Star Tribune newspaper), with 31 daily newspapers and approximately 50 nondailies. For more information on McClatchy Interactive, visit http://www.mcclatchyinteractive.com/. For more information on Real Cities, visit http://www.realcities.com/.
