Press Release: The Independent and SRMG announce international expansion

The Independent, the UK- and US-based digital news publisher, and Saudi Research and Marketing Group, SRMG, the Middle East’s biggest media house, today announce a long-term project to deliver internationally renowned and respected journalism to millions of new readers around the world.

Four new websites will offer the highest-quality, free-thinking, independent news, insight and analysis on global affairs and local events. These will be published in Arabic, Urdu, Turkish and Persian. Each site will feature translations of articles from independent.co.uk alongside content from teams of SRMG journalists based in London, Islamabad, Istanbul, and New York, as well as operations teams in Riyadh and Dubai.

The new sites – Independent Arabia, Independent Urdu, Independent Turkish, and Independent Persian – will be owned and operated by SRMG. All editorial practices and output will conform to the world-renowned standards, code of conduct and established ethos of The Independent.

The Independent has, over many decades, established a global reputation for market-leading independent coverage of the Middle East, with a recently strengthened team.

This new project is part of the strategic growth of the title, which has recently expanded its overseas reporting, with correspondents in Jerusalem, Delhi, Moscow and Istanbul. Further roles in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and Seattle are planned, as well as additional staff in the main London and New York newsrooms, enriching the title’s international footprint at a time when many news publishers around the world are cutting back.

By 2022, two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to have smartphone connectivity, and much of this growth in device penetration will take place outside of the more mature markets of the UK and Europe. For news publishers with a strong legacy and reputation for international reporting, this represents a huge opportunity.
 

Dr. Ghassan Alshibl, the Chairman of SRMG, said: “We deeply believe that SRMG, through this comprehensive partnership forged with The Independent, is growing the level of its international licensing businesses to a higher altitude. Our reach, with this multilingual project targeting hundreds of millions of readers around the world, will be farther, and our audiences will be enormously wider. As part of SRMG’s global business initiatives we began in 2006 with a number of the biggest publishers in the world, we have been demonstrating in all our partnerships, like today with IDNM, SRMG’s eagerness and commitment to grow and strengthen its content platforms to be distinctly competitive in the wider space of the global media industry based on the strong professional pillars of credibility, authenticity and knowledgeable authority of quality journalism. With such an approach to our investment and growth strategies, SRMG will be solidifying its position in the market as one of the most important key players in the media landscape regionally and internationally.”

Zach Leonard, Managing Director, Independent Digital News and Media, said: “The Independent is known and respected around the world for the quality of its journalism and the trust and authority it has earned through 31 years. As a fully digital publisher, our influence and reach have never been greater, with a loyal user and subscriber base and a total readership in excess of 100 million each month. This new chapter brings an opportunity to build on that heritage, and increase our reach at a fascinating time of rapid change in the Middle East. We look forward to showcasing new ideas and provoking debate with new audiences across the region and beyond.”

The four new websites – independentarabia.com, independenturdu.com, independentturkish.com and independentpersian.com – will launch later this year. Social media accounts will be publicised as the services are launched. The Independent will continue to publish its own content, as it does today, exclusively in the English language.