The UK's best-selling daily tabloid, News Corporation-owned The Sun, has launched a free classified advertising website, Sun Local. Accessible via the daily's online homepage, it boasts more than two million ad listings, selling everything from cars to pets.
The service offers users the chance to post their own ads and send free email alerts. It has yet to be fanfared, but a campaign from the paper's agency Euro RSCG is expected shortly.
Says Les Hinton, chairman of NewsCorp's UK unit News International: "If you add together the sales of the printed version of the paper and the online usage - we call them 'Sun sessions' - The Sun reaches about as many eyeballs as do some of our most popular TV programmes."
Analysts have predicted that free advertising sites such as Craig's List in the US and gumtree.com in London could hasten the demise of newspapers by starving them of classified advertising revenue.
Data sourced from MediaGuardian.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff
