LSN Mobile Local News App Passes 5 Million Users

LSN Mobile, which owns and operates the nation’s largest mobile news network, reports that its local news app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry has been downloaded more than 5 million times since it was introduced in 2009, making it one of the top-ranked, no-cost news apps available. That means one in every 60 U.S. households has accessed the app to glean local content. Local News, Weather and More provides consumers with breaking news, weather information, gas prices, flight statuses, sport scores and other information from their local regions. The app pulls content via the websites of consumers’ local news affiliates.

“The number of downloads of Local News, Weather and More shows how much people want and need local content,” said Lee Durham, CEO of LSN Mobile. “News, weather, entertainment, gas prices — all of those are things that consumers want to know about every day, on their own time, and they want to know about them from a reliable local source.”

The milestone points not only to the significance of mobile media and the growth of the overall mobile application market, but also to the ever-increasing importance of getting timely content delivered in the context of consumers’ local regions, the company said. And, LSN Mobile added, it also points to the importance of mobile marketing and its increasing significance as a way to engage local consumers.

“When events like bad weather or globally significant news events hit, people are turning to their mobile devices to keep up on the latest alerts,” Durham said. “What keeps them coming back is the access to all the rich content that surrounds that news. People want a trusted local source to deliver the information that’s important to them, and if they get that they will continue to return to that source for all their information needs.”

LSN Mobile was founded in 2001. The company powers mobile websites for more than 250 TV operating groups including ABC, Telemundo, Post-Newsweek Stations, Hearst, Local TV LLC and Nexstar and has built more than 500 branded apps for each of its news affiliates.