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Trinity Mirror’s managing director of new media, David Clarke, has

poached Jason Smith from Virgin Net to be the group’s first new-media

sales director.

Smith will head a 12- strong new-media sales team based in Canary Wharf,

which will represent all the newly merged group’s online properties. The

sales manager of Mirror Media, Ben Hedges, will report to Smith.

At Virgin Net, Smith brought in pounds 3.5 million of business in banner

ads, sponsorship and e-commerce partnerships. Previously, he spent ten

years in magazines at Future, VNU and Dennis where he helped launch PC

Pro.

Clarke joined Trinity Mirror in April.

Smith’s immediate challenge is to merge the group’s national and

regional online activities. ’We are beginning discussions on how we fit

the various sites into a portfolio of products,’ he said. The regional

sites have previously taken predominantly local advertising.

The group’s national sites include ic24.co.uk, independent.co.uk and

sporting-life.com. The last includes an online betting service,

totalbet.com, and has registered 17 million impressions since launch

nearly three years ago.

Ic24 went online this year and has 175,000 subscribers with six million

impressions.