AnswersMedia Inc. has reached an agreement to provide online video content for Sun-Times Media Group Inc. to attract more national advertisers and better target local and regional advertisers.
Video programming from AnswersMedia’s Answers TV network will be broadcast across Sun-Times Media Group Web sites. The videos will complement coverage within the newspapers and will focus mainly on lifestyle and human interest issues.
“It’s clear to the entire industry that newspapers are declining in their readership numbers,” said Jeff Bohnson, CEO of AnswersMedia. “We believe that by adding video online we can extend readership into viewership. It is an additional offering that the Sun-Times can now extend to their advertisers while extending additional resources to their customers that are their subscribers.”
The first Answers TV channel offered by The Sun-Times and AnswersMedia will be “FoodAnswersTV.” Future channel offerings will cover health, college and several other topics. Between six and 10 channels should debut over the next two years.
Partnering with Sun-Times follows AnswersMedia’s larger business strategy. AnswersMedia aims to acquire many distribution syndication partners across a range of platforms
Sun-Times Media Group owns more than 100 papers in the Chicago region through its subsidiary, The Sun-Times News Group. Its flagship publication is the Chicago Sun-Times. Other publications include The Daily Southtown, The Star and Post-Tribune.
AnswersMedia produces educational programming across a variety of channels. Operating from its production studio in Chicago, AnswersMedia’s publishing and advertising platform enables embedded and interchangeable advertising throughout its suite of programs. Its programs are distributed through broadband, cable video on demand, wireless and other platforms.
Mr. Bohnson said the company will soon expand to cross-platform distribution that includes video on demand and other newspaper sites. He also foresees the company forming deeper relationships with newspaper partners.
“We’re really embracing the convergence of media,” Mr. Bohnson said. “And we’re enabling those who have not been able to participate and/or profit from video and television programming to now be able to in an on-demand online world.”
