Publisher 1XL Launches Audience Development Division

In the UK, local news publisher co-operative 1XL has launched an Audience Development division, led by audience acquisition specialist Richard Underwood.

1XL was formed in 2014 by newspaper groups Johnston Press, Newsquest, Local World and several smaller publishers, and has offices in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. The firms pool their digital advertising space, giving brands access to 24.6 million online readers of more than 800 local newspaper web sites. In July, 1XL formed a partnership with MR tech company AudienceProject, through which its ad sales teams use the latter's measurement and targeting tools to establish key audience metrics.

Underwood (pictured) joins in London with two decades of experience of developing audience acquisition strategies for media brands. Most recently, he worked for IT Services and Management Consultancy Greystone as Digital Consultant, prior to which he served as Audience Director for multi-media content creation and distribution business TeamRock, whose portfolio of rock magazines includes Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, and Prog and Blues. Earlier, he was Head of Audience Development at Local World.

In his new role, Underwood is tasked with consolidating the technology and web sites used by 1XL's publishers, to help them build audiences at scale. He reports to MD Scott Gill, who comments: 'Investment in audience development is integral to how our publishers scale and make money, as it improves their visibility with the machines and algorithms sat between their sites and the end user. Richard's appointment is reflective of our ambitions to evolve beyond our original mandate as a publisher co-operative as we move further and further into audience acquisition'.

Web site: www.1xl.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.