Over the past few months, INN has been able to offer members new opportunities for third-party distribution through partnerships with Patch, SmartNews, Spotlight, News Break and, most recently, Nextdoor. Through new distribution opportunities, nonprofit news outlets have an extra opportunity to gain new readers, insights into their audience and even earn additional revenue

Patch, the hyperlocal (and profitable) digital news platform, had its strongest month ever in March for both revenue and traffic. The digital-only local news platform is an anomaly compared other local news publishers which are struggling amid steep advertising losses. By the numbers: Last month Patch had nearly double its average page views (148 million vs. 85 million) across its network of local news sites and 48 million unique visitors

Curated content platform Flipboard is growing out its local news initiative with the addition of 12 new metropolitan areas, as well as partnerships with local news platform Patch and nonprofit newsroom ProPublica. The local news initiative debuted in 23 metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Canada in January, and Thursday’s additions raise that total to 35 metro areas served. The new markets are: Baltimore; Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C.; Cleveland; Detroit; Indianapolis; Nashville; Orlando and Tampa

Flipboard is bringing local news to 12 more U.S. metros and is adding critical coronavirus local coverage to all of the 35 supported locales. Patch alone is putting out more than 200 local coronavirus stories per day.

Patch Media, the publisher of more than 1,200 hyper-local news sites, is a comparable bright spot among publishers of local news; it's been profitable for the past four years. As other providers of local news seek ways to build a sustainable business as ad revenue and circulation dwindle, Patch has developed a template that helps to identify markets ripe for a local site.

Over the last three years, Patch has experienced substantial growth in all aspects of its operations. The metrics of our business are at record levels — traffic, audience (tripled since 2014), revenue, engagement — you name it. We've more than doubled the size of our newsroom.

Now that Patch is profitable, Hale said it plans to invest in other initiatives and distribution channels. It recently rolled out a new design aimed to work well with mobile devices. On Monday, it opened two new metro-area “patches” covering Boston and Chicago.

Scaling a high-margin revenue stream that's not contingent on page views (the way advertising rates often are calculated) is critical in local news, because truly local news is usually only relevant to small group of people.

BOCA RATON, FL – Newspapers and online news sites from around the state — including Patch local editor D'Ann White — were honored for their best journalism during 2018-19 Saturday at the gala for the Florida Press Club's 2019 Excellence in Journalism Competition.

Hyperlocal publisher is automating some reports because "no one ever went to journalism school to write a weather forecast."

Hyper-local news service Patch is celebrating its fifth anniversary since being sold by AOL to Hale Global, three consecutive years of profitability and a continuing expansion of staff and reporting capabilities.

"The massive amount of money AOL invested in Patch to begin with led to strong brand recognition in communities around the country." Add to that a substantial email list, a single platform and a centralized content management system that allows for efficiency, and Patch has managed to gain some traction.

In numbers released to The New York Times, the company said it was on track for $21 million in revenue in its first year, and was actually profitable in February, March and April. The biggest change has come on the advertising side.

Patch in 2019 is not that far off from the pitch former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong used to deliver when he was proselytizing for Patch years ago: A mix of timely updates produced by a fast-typing team of local reporters, supported by ads for local businesses, on a platform designed to let local readers and advertisers load their own stuff onto the site. One big difference between the two eras, say Patch employees, is that the new Patch is more thoughtful about where it deploys resources.

Tim Jensen, Connecticut sports editor for Patch Media Corp., was re-elected Thursday to a third term as president of the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance (CSWA), one of the nation's oldest sports journalism associations.

Roughly 1,800 local papers closed between 2004 and 2018, replaced by only 400 online-only sites, according to a UNC study. For Patch, the dearth of local content presents an opportunity to quench the thirst for local news in underserved communities – but with an economically viable business model.

Local news outlet Patch has expanded its New York City readership by 45%, in large part due to expanding its coverage of the city and the abrupt closing of DNAinfo and Gothamist. New York Patch saw page views grow from 939,821 in June 2017 to 1,370,264 in January 2018. Local news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist abruptly shut down in November.

Patch editor Joseph Hosey, facing judicial pressure to disclose the identity of a confidential source, was presented with the National Press Club's 2014 John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award Wednesday evening in Washington, D.C.