Say hello to Cork Beo!
Cork Beo is our latest ‘Live’ site and brings the number of digital media brands in our portfolio to five (Irish Mirror, Belfast Live, Dublin Live, RSVP Live and now Cork Beo). And in case you're wondering, ‘Beo’ is Irish for ‘Live’ - pronounced ‘bee-oh’ - and we think it fits our Irish portfolio just perfectly and should resonate with the audience in the region.
We chose Cork as our next ‘Live’ city to launch in as it is a city on the rise with a growing population and lots of inward investment and opportunity which will hopefully be the case with the website also.
Cork Beo will be a fresh, new voice dedicated to a vibrant and diverse region, publishing in-depth news of everything happening in Cork on a daily basis - what you need to know, when you need to know it. It will focus on the issues that really matter to the people of Cork, City & County.
It won’t all be serious though, the Irish love a laugh and to be entertained so Cork Beo will have lots of colour, cool content, fun recommendations and news people can use.
A large scale marketing campaign has taken over the city - see gallery below - and the official launch party for the site, attended by newly inaugurated Cork City Lord Mayor, Dr John Sheehan and our CEO of Simon Fox, saw good luck messages from the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Simon Coveney and Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, who all wished the CorkBeo team well on their mission to inform and entertain half a million people across Ireland’s biggest county.
So we welcome Editor Joe O'Shea and Deputy Editor Cormac O'Shea, pictured above with the rest of the team - journalists Darragh Byrne (left) and Frances Watkins (second left) - as well as Digital Sales Manager Sarah Cooney (second from right) who will head up the Commercial operation in Cork. They will be based in our Cork office with the RSVP team.
Fun fact: Cork Beo is the first digital platform in Ireland to launch with an advertising partnership booked in before the site even went live! 'Cork by Numbers' in association with Ulster Bank was produced for Cork Beo off the back of the same video property partnership with Dublin Live.
A word from our newest ‘Live’ Editor, Joe O’Shea:
"Hi, I'm Joe O'Shea, Editor of Cork Beo - "Beo" is Gaelic for both "live" and "alive" and we reckon that sums up what we want to do with this new digital news site for the fastest developing region in Ireland. Cork is Ireland's biggest County, it has a huge coastline that takes in West Cork, the "Irish Riviera" and the city of Cork itself, a historic mercantile port with an epic natural harbour. I'm a native Leesider - from the city centre - who recently returned home to the Rebel County after many years in Dublin and - more recently - London.Cork is forecast to be the fastest growing region - in terms of jobs, investment, infrastructure and population - in Ireland for the next two decades. The city and the county are on the cusp of great change and rapid development, with a young, vibrant and diverse population (the city population is 21% non-national) and European HQ's for major tech, pharma and life-science giants.
There's a fierce pride in Cork, which I share, and a new, driving ambition. Cork Beo will reflect, amplify and champion this pride, energy and ambition."
