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Johnston Press relaunches all its local websites

All Johnston Press local websites have now been relaunched with the group's new-look desktop template and design.

A total of 196 local sites have been switched over, bringing to a successful conclusion a significant 6-month rollout project involving many teams from right across the group, says Johnston Press.

Audiences have also grown as the rollout has continued, with the JP digital network setting new record figures of 13m unique users and 100m page views in August.

Alex Gubbay, Director Digital Platforms, said: "It's been a mammoth project but the result is a much better local website platform, which is already proving more effective for our users and advertisers.

"The changes don't stop here either. We're planning many more enhancements in the coming months, especially on mobile and video.

"But it's great to now have this more solid foundation in place right across the group, so we can develop further in a more agile manner from here on."

As part of the local website project, The Scotsman's website was also relaunched at the end of July, with a new companion site for The Edinburgh Evening News.

And, according to the publishers, the first full month of combined figures showed a 30% year-on-year like-for-like increase in visitors and page views, with 87% of respondents to user surveys indicating the new site was an improvement on the old one.

August was also a very strong month for JP's new entertainments platform WOW247. Now out of beta, it had 250k users visiting the main site and its dedicated Edinburgh Festival microsite.