PR Newswire
PR Newswire is a news release distribution service established in 1954. It is owned by London based media conglomerate United Business Media.
PR Newswire is a U.S.-based international company, which provides distribution, targeting, measurement and monitoring, and multimedia services on behalf of corporations, government agencies, labor organizations, PR agencies, non-profit entities and other customers worldwide. Using PR Newswire, these organizations reach a variety of audiences including mainstream media, the investment community, government decision-makers, and the general public via full-text news releases, audio and video broadcasts and Webcasts, and multimedia news distributions.
Headquartered in New York, PR Newswire has offices in 11 countries and sends its members’ news to outlets in 135 countries. The company’s leading brands and services include: ProfNet(SM), eWatch™, MEDIAtlas™, MultiVu™, Search Engine Visibility, MediaRoom and MediaSense™. It also has agreements with major global news agencies - such as Bloomberg, the Associated Press, Dow Jones and Reuters - to deliver content directly into newsrooms worldwide. PR Newswire is a subsidiary of United Business Media plc of London.
History
PR Newswire was established in New York in 1954 by Herb Muschel as the first commercial wire service. Prior to PR Newswire’s launch, companies issuing press releases to the New York media had to messenger or mail individual copies of their news releases to the city’s daily newspapers and news services. With PR Newswire, companies could send a single copy of their release to PR Newswire’s newsroom, where it would be simultaneously transmitted to the city’s major media points.
PR Newswire expanded its presence in 1963, making it the first inter-city wire service. With the launch of the Investors Research Wire in 1965, PR Newswire became the first third-party wire service to focus on the specific needs of the financial community, and in 1966 the company was recognized by the New York Stock Exchange as an efficient means for public companies to meet disclosure. In 1967, the company went national with the acquisition of the local Los Angeles wire service.
In 1972, PR Newswire began using electronic terminals for more efficient copyediting, and in 1978 the company went fully digital with the adoption of the Associated Press’ computerized message handling and transmission system. Throughout the 1970’s, PR Newswire continued to expand its range of distribution and launched industry-specific “feature” circuits to target travel and entertainment editors.
Purchased by United Newspapers plc (today known as United Business Media PLC) of London in 1982, PR Newswire continued to expand its presence throughout the decade. To achieve wider distribution, PR Newswire began to use more advanced news distribution technologies, including satellites and FM-sideband broadcasting. By the end of the decade, many US dailies and financial institutions took PR Newswire directly into their internal information systems. PR Newswire also began archiving news releases on electronic databases, including NEXIS (now LexisNexis), making stories accessible to the media, financial community and the public at any time after initial transmission.
In 1996, PR Newswire made news releases available via the World Wide Web with the launch of its Web site www.prnewswire.com. In 1997 the company also launched a media-only Press Room, PR Newswire for Journalists. PR Newswire also used the Internet to make members’ news releases, photos and Webcast events available to new audiences via multimedia distributions, while media intelligence and Internet monitoring services provided PR Newswire clients with a better understanding of the impact of their communications programs. By the turn of the millennium, PR Newswire had also expanded its global presence, opening bureaus in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Today, PR Newswire continues to provide distribution of news and other corporate information to a variety of domestic and international media points, in multiple formats. In 2002, PR Newswire was recognized by the United Kingdom as disclosure vehicle, and in the same year the company launched China-based Xinhua PR Newswire, further extending its global presence.
In 2002 PR Newswire also launched its own broadcast and Webcast production company, MultiVu™, which today is the fastest growing broadcast PR company in the United States. MultiVu’s services include video news releases (VNRs), audio news releases (ANRs), satellite and radio media tours (SMTs and RMTs), public service announcements (PSAs), electronic multimedia kits (EMKs), Webcasting and more.
In October 2006, PR Newswire acquired US Newswire from Medialink.
The company offers news distribution to over 3,600 Web sites, databases and news aggregators - such as Yahoo!, Google, AOL, MSN, MarketWatch, Factiva and Bloomberg, LexisNexis and Comtex. PR Newswire also offers more than 680 RSS news feeds, and has recently partnered with del.icio.us in an attempt to expand its presence to Web 2.0 platforms. With eWatch, PR Newswire’s media monitoring service, and MediaSense, the company’s media measurement offering, PR Newswire also provides clients with the tools to gauge the effectiveness of their media campaigns.
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- Nancy Sells Using media intelligence tools to drive communications success, 2006.
