There’s an after-life for Lasting Tribute. The bereavement classifieds site had powered obits for Northcliffe’s ThisIsAnnouncements platform.
But now Northcliffe’s owner is selling the site to iAnnounce, the larger, dedicated platform in the sector, HTFP reports. A&N will take a minority stake in iAnnounce itself.
It’s probably a smart cost-cutting move by DMGT’s regional arm. Johnston Press scrapped its in-house obits site and outsourced it to iAnnounce back in 2008 – and quickly found that iAnnounce classifieds were making up a tenth of its digital income by early 2009.
Archant, Newsquest and Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) also use the platform.
Lasting Tribute was launched in 2007.