CityAM is to dramatically shake-up its editorial model, allowing corporate brands to create content that will sit, and compete, directly with its own editorial teams.
Sounds like a PRs dream - easily placed, free content on a respected media platform.
But there is a catch - of course.
Corporate brands will be charged a 'tenancy fee' and be required to commit for a minimum of six months. It will run under the name 'City Talk', with a brand's name replacing 'City' - for example, PwC Talk.
Other newspapers are, predictably, dismissive of the move - another nail in the press coffin. But the move will be welcomed by brands - even more so those with active content marketing strategies.
City AM will no longer be produced solely by the staff team (the company is 69-strong). From now on, articles will also be generated by a raft of new 'contributors', paid according to the number of page views they generate, and – most controversially – by corporate brands and their advertising and PR teams, who will be given direct access to the content management system (CMS) of the newspaper's website. "We are definitely turning the commercial model upside down on its head – now we will give the marketers and the advertisers access to the same content management system that all the journalists and contributors are using on a day-to-day basis," says Yardley.
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