Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) is appointing former Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) portal management director Chris Bunyan as the digital director for its regional business. David Black had held the position from 2003 until last summer, when he was upped to group-wide digital director. Bunyan, who quit Virgin in February, will report to Trinity’s regional MD Georgina Harvey and Black, who was himself a Virgin.net producer back in the 90s.
An interesting time to be joining the digital regional side – while regional in print faces a challenging ad market, Trinity is culling many of the “ic” portals it has operated for several years in favour of standalone, newspaper-branded sites. Overall regional profit fell 4.6 percent to £109 million last year though regional digital revenue was up a third to £30.4 million, with a 58.1 percent better profit of £9.8 million. Trinity launched 20 hyperlocal sites last year and aims to recruit 100 more digital staff across the company this year, mostly in advertising. Via PG.