Australian culture brand Broadsheet has officially gone live in London after eight weeks under soft launch.
Broadsheet London is now putting out daily content about the UK capital at Broadsheet.com/london, via newsletters and on Tiktok and Instagram.
It says it celebrates and reports on the best of London’s cultural landscape and is covering restaurant openings, museum exhibitions, new shops, theatre shows, and bar and restaurant residencies.
The title has also put out its first quarterly print edition, with 60,000 copies going into restaurants, cafes, shops, hotels, members’ clubs and co-working spaces.
The move comes some three years after Time Out closed its print edition in London. Time Out continues to provide online content about the London leisure and entertainment scene.
London is Broadsheet’s first launch outside Australia, where it started in Melbourne in 2009 before expanding into Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
The editorial team is being led by publisher and founder Nick Shelton with London editor Sonya Barber (previously acting digital editor at Conde Nast Traveller and news and events editor at Time Out Group), London commissioning editor Che-Marie Trigg (previously Sydney editor for Broadsheet) and Richard MacKichan as print editor.
The team also includes commercial director for the UK and Europe Paul Davison, previously vice president, commercial for Vice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Broadsheet launched in partnership with advertisers including: Maker’s Mark, Space NK, Square, Mount Street Neighbourhood, Belazu and Sky. Advertisers in the print edition included: reMarkable, Moneybox, Tourism Australia and Papa Salt Gin.
Broadsheet has a branded content and integration studio that it said can create ad campaigns across video, social media, text content and events.
Shelton told Press Gazette this summer that although Broadsheet has paid memberships in Australia, this would not follow in London “until there’s a bit of maturity with audience volume”.
He also said the Broadsheet website prioritises reader experience over advertising volume: “Sites that are covered in ads and pop-ups make the reading experience terrible. You can make a few more bucks that way, but that’s not long-term value creation.”
Broadsheet’s competitors in London include the Standard and Time Out, various ‘what’s on’ newsletters, and the likes of The Times which launched a dedicated London newsletter and website section this summer.
But Shelton said: “Other culture publishers are strong on evergreen listings content, or it’s national newspapers doing weekend supplements. We sort of play this role in between – a focused go-to on culture. The audience, the journalism industry and the advertising industry tell us this doesn’t exist, so we’re confident.”
Broadsheet has run an advertising campaign across London with digital billboards featuring its headlines tailored to local neighbourhoods.
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