Daily Herald revamps Beep, Time out!
The free entertainment weekly Beep and the Daily Herald's Friday entertainment section Time out! are revamping and amping up their online offerings.
"I'm so stoked about this," said Beep Entertainment Editor Lisa Balde. "The difference between other (alternative weeklies) and us is that we are all suburban. Our focus is where to go and what to do in the suburbs."
Beep's redesign is being launched today, and changes in the Time out! section of the Daily Herald will be unveiled Friday.
The two entertainment ventures are combining many of their dining, music, television and bar features and reviews.
Beep and Time out! content will be combined on the entertainment link at Dailyherald.com and at Entertainment.dailyherald.com, which also is launching today.
The melding of mainstream, alternative and Internet media is part of a wider trend in journalism to attract younger readers, according to Rich Gordon, director of new media at the Medill School of Graduate Journalism, Northwestern University.
"Every local newspaper is trying to reach people who don't read, and that primarily is young adults," said Gordon, whose students helped develop the original version of Beep in 2005. "And they want to reach advertisers that want to reach people who don't read newspapers."
Indeed, the main competition for the multimedia Beep, Time out! and Entertainment.dailyherald.com package likely will be Tribune Co.'s online entertainment search engine, Metromix, Balde said. Most other free print alternative entertainment weeklies focus on Chicago activities and give scant coverage to suburban lifestyles, Balde said.
Entertainment.dailyherald.com is searchable by suburb and will focus on suburban lifestyles for all ages, Beep editors said.
Beep distribution, once available throughout the West and Northwest suburbs, will focus on Cook County. About 35,000 copies will be available at more than 800 locations on Thursdays.
"We will be offering a "Beep-ified" Time out! and a "Time out!-ified" Beep," said Eileen Brown, director of innovation at Paddock Publications, the Arlington Heights-based parent company of the Daily Herald.
Beep and Time out! will give advertisers an opportunity to attract both, those who read and don't read the Daily Herald, Brown said.
"We're planning a marketing push that will include signage at the Allstate Arena and other venues as well as new stickers on the Beep boxes," Brown said. "We'll also continue with our Beep parties and concerts."
Beepcentral.com was launched in February 2006, followed by the print Beep, which started circulation July 12, 2006.
Success will be measured in hard copy returns, advertising dollars and Web readers, but Brown said she has additional standards.
"I'll know we're successful when I'm sitting in Panera Bread and I see people reading it," Brown said. "I'll know when I see people reading it on the treadmill."