Local newspaper publishers will be able to submit their best stories for inclusion on the local BBC News sites following a trial in West Yorkshire and the North East.
The new system will be adopted region by region, starting in Birmingham and be in place across the country by the middle of 2016.
Several of the BBC’s local news sites, including London, Merseyside and Cornwall, currently incorporate “hyper-local” links to third-party sites as part of a news feed. Following this trial, publishers will be freed up to choose which links they want to promote via the sites.
BBC English Regions controller David Holdsworth said both audiences and local newspapers would benefit from the improved method.
“Local newspapers serve audiences across England and publish thousands more stories than the BBC every week. It is natural and healthy that journalists want to compete for stories, but this an example of a way the BBC can also contribute to a thriving local news market.”
In 2014, the BBC’s local news sites generated an average of 2.5m clicks to third-party sites each month, according to the corporation.
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