NY Times to launch Portuguese-language website for Brazil
The New York Times will launch a Portuguese-language website next year as part of plans to expand its global reach into Brazil, its publisher said here Monday.
Arthur Sulzberger outlined the planned launch, scheduled for the second half of 2013, while addressing an Inter-American Press Association lunch here.
"The mission of this site will be to offer Brazilian readers Times-quality coverage of the news that is most important to them," he said, noting that the site would be very similar to the one his paper launched in China this year.
He described the upcoming launch as a sign that Brazil, which will host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 summer Olympics, "is one of the most important countries in the world."
"Now is the time to invest in Brazil," he noted, praising the emerging powerhouse's success in reducing poverty and expanding its middle class.
Sulzberger said the Brazil site will publish between 30 and 40 articles a day with photography, two thirds of which will be translations of stories appearing in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.
The other third will involve original reporting for Brazilian readers.
The publisher also painted an optimistic picture of journalism which he described as "increasingly digital and increasingly global".
"We are looking at ways to extend our reach," he noted, saying his newspaper was capitalizing on the digital technological revolution.
"We launched our digital subscription model about 15 months ago. Today we have more than two million paying subscribers when you combine print and digital," he said.
Sulzberger said the four top countries driving traffic to The Times website were the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.
When it comes to mobile application traffic, the United States leads, followed by China, Canada, South Korea and Japan.
The surge in digital traffic at the influential newspaper comes amid falling print subscriptions, with Sulzberger noting that the industry was increasingly opting for the digital paying model.
(c) 2012 AFP
