NBR Web site spins out of money

By Mark Reynolds

One of the country's largest Internet Web sites will close down early next month because it is not making enough money for its owners.

The National Business Review's main Internet window at www.nbr.co.nz will be shuttered up from June 3, NBR NETwork manager Graeme Colman confirmed yesterday.

The site has attracted a massive audience in the past, with Mr Colman saying 100,000 people use the site on a regular basis. But extracting sufficient advertising revenue from the site, or making people subscribe for the electronic information, had proved to be elusive.

The NBR site was still profitable, but was not generating an acceptable rate of return on assets for its owners, Mr Colman said.

Some companies had long-term contracts with NBR to advertise on the site and they had been negotiated out. Any subscribers that had paid in advance for access to information on restricted parts of the site would have that money refunded, Mr Colman said.

Advertisers "understood the commercial reality" of why the site was closing, Mr Colman said. He said NBR was a publishing company and could not afford to continue to put out a publication - either electronic or on paper - without subscribers or advertisers paying for it.

The site gives limited free access to the National Business Review and also serves as a portal to other information services like Dow Jones and Reuters. It has also been a gateway into third-party subscriber services including specialist investment newsletters. Mr Colman said some of those services were in negotiations with NBR over the closure.

NBR publisher Barry Colman said in a statement that the change would deliver greater returns for the company.