STV has announced the launch of www.local.stv.tv, an interactive website where people across Scotland can access, and contribute to, a wealth of local information about their area.

The website features a range of local services for Scottish towns, cities and communities, including local news, sport and weather updates, a business directory, jobs and a ‘What’s On’ guide for gigs, restaurants, films, plays and events.
 
STV Local provides information on what’s happening in over 200 places across Scotland. This project is the next development of STV’s digital platforms and will support user generated content, allowing people across the country to celebrate the best – and highlight the worst – an area has to offer.
 
There are currently a range of local businesses on the site, including restaurants, shops, pubs, beauty salons, hotels, events and tourist attractions.
 
Online users are invited to interact with the website by posting their own ratings, reviews and comments about local events and businesses. Local groups and communities will be encouraged to supply news about their own activities, making STV Local a truly interactive experience.
 
Alistair Brown, head of digital at STV, said: “STV Local allows us to get right on the doorstep of our audiences across Scotland, offering an essential source of local information for their areas, and will provide the foundations on which we hope to build strong relationships with communities across Scotland.
 
“We are bringing together the richness of material from STV – including news, sport, entertainment, weather, jobs - and combining it with local information as well as ratings and reviews from individuals, to produce a series of websites that will be of real value to residents and visitors.  The site will continue to evolve and improve as we develop a broad range of relationships with individuals and organisations across the whole of Scotland.
 
Rob Woodward, chief executive of STV, added: “STV Local is a major initiative for our online team and an exciting development of STV’s digital platforms. From the success of our unique localised news bulletins and our partnerships with local advertisers, we know that ‘localness’ is important to people across Scotland.  We’re pleased to now be offering an additional layer of localness, which our audiences can actively contribute to, via our online services.”
 
The launch coincides with a series of new partnerships between STV, Edinburgh Napier University, Stirling University and University of the West of Scotland, which gives students the opportunity to work closely with STV’s digital team to create local content for the site. STV will continue to expand the partnerships to involve additional institutions and organisations.
 
Journalism and TV production students from the institutions have been invited to create and submit reviews and ratings for STV Local, as well as news, sport and entertainment stories, short films, animation, graphics and other content. Students who choose to get involved will gain experience of working at a professional level with a major Scottish media organisation as well as gaining editorial feedback.
 
STV Local is the latest venture in the development of STV’s digital platform. In February, the company launched a new classified business, including online recruitment service stvjobs.com, which was supported by a multi-million pound media campaign.
 
STV has also recently launched STV Player, a new online TV on Demand service where viewers can catch up with their favourite STV programmes free of charge and watch selected programmes from the STV archives.
 
STV Local is sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland.
 
www.local.stv.tv