CBS Local Digital Media has announced a collaborative agreement with Examiner.com to create original lifestyle content for local audiences. Content will focus on "Best Of" guides and "Top Spots" lists covering a range of topics including arts and culture, shopping, food and drink, nightlife and music, as well as travel and outdoors.
Editorial pieces will be published on CBS's locally targeted digital offerings. These web sites and digital offerings combine content and resources from the CBS owned TV and radio stations in more than two dozen major markets nationwide. The sites, which offer local information, news, entertainment and discussions, reach over 33 million unique monthly visitors.
Examiner.com, which attracts over 17 million unique visitors each month, is an online publisher with over 85,000 contributors, known as Examiners that produce local content.
The first content will begin appearing on select CBS Local websites later in December and stories written by Examiners will be rolled out to all 25 of CBS Local's websites within the first quarter of 2012.
"Over the course of the past 18 months we've built a platform that quickly garnered interest from millions of users searching for the best local news, information and entertainment," said Ezra Kucharz, president of CBS Local Digital Media, in a statement. "Taking our vision one step further by working with a stable of contributors with expertise in their field will greatly enhance the audience's experience. This is not just about telling you where to go and what to see -- it's providing ‘insider access' to a city you may be visiting or have lived your whole life that you can't get anywhere else."
Leonard Brody, president of Clarity Digital, the parent company of Examiner.com added in a statement that "this partnership exemplifies our strength in producing high quality content at scale" and that "Examiner.com has the unique ability to mobilize our national base Examiners at a moment's notice to produce the most engaging and relevant stories, articles and posts."
