The Independent has announced that it is to launch a new digitally-focused US office to serve an increasingly global online audience.
Andrew Buncombe, formerly the newspaper’s Washington correspondent before becoming Asia correspondent, has moved to the role of US digital editor, joining the existing US editor, David Usborne, in New York. A number of new positions will be added in the coming months in both the New York and London offices.
The plans were announced after The Independent exceeded 200 million global page views, with 100 million page views in the UK, according to the latest ABC results for January 2015.
“We have a big combined platform now, and big ambitions,” said Christian Broughton, digital editor of The Independent and i100.
“We’re expanding the editorial staff again over the year ahead, adding new specialisms and building on existing strengths. The US office has two key targets: to extend our US news coverage for our global audience, and to serve our US audience, which accounts for a third of the total, better than ever before.”
Despite the online success, the title sees a very different picture in print, however, with The Independent and i both losing readers year on year. The latest ABC print circulation figures show the Indy was down almost 8%, whilst the i was down -6% in January, equating to monthly sales of 61,338 and 280,351, respectively.
