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The more than 71 square miles in Brooklyn are home to over 2.5 million people. Together with its size and population, Brooklyn is the fourth largest city in the U.S.A. Downtown Brooklyn is a short 10 minute drive and train ride to Manhattan and there are nearly 40,000 companies within the Borough. Brooklyn has a wonderful mix of residential, industrial and commercial properties which make it a great place to live and work. There are a multitude of activities ranging from street fairs to recreational activities, to parks and cultural centers, which are available every day. Our papers cover events, meetings and news which shape the quality of life throughout Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Downtown STAR has a circulation of 15,000, The STAR is available at more than 150 locations in Downtown, Fort Greene, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and Bushwick. We are circulated primarily in zip codes11205, 11217, 11238 and 11201. The Brooklyn Downtown STAR also covers news important to the entire borough of Brooklyn like no other weekly newspaper.www.leaderobservo1.wpengine.com

About Our Media Group

We currently publish eight weekly newspapers in Queens County and Brooklyn, with a combined total circulation of 150,000. Our circulation is entirely paid (combination newsstand and mailed by subscription) and available at more than 700 newsstands. Our readership is made up of community residents who need weekly information which shapes their local lives.
From local environmental issues, to our school boards to local youth and adult sports reporting, the Queens Ledger / Greenpoint Star Community Newspaper Group is serious about informing our readers about;
1. what is happening on their block,
2. what is happening in their neighborhood, and
3. what is going on in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn which affects their lives.

Our readership is heavily made up of civic members, families with children in schools, people who attend religious services and people involved in community sports. We have subscription programs for organizations in our communities, because those people are the ones who are active. They are the ones with the purchasing power who support our merchants.

Queens County is made up of a series of towns broken into THREE distinct areas. Established in 1873, the Newtown Register (from which we evolved) covered the local news for the Western Queens community. Today four of our newspapers cover this diverse area. They are the Queens Ledger,the Glendale Register, the Forest Hills/Rego Park TIMES and the Astoria/Long Island City/Jackson Heights JOURNAL

Established in 1909, the Observer weekly newspaper of Richmond Hill published weekly for that town in South Queens. In 1912, the Leader weekly newspaper of Woodhaven combined with the Observer newspaper and the LEADER/OBSERVER newspaper of South-Queens was formed. Today this newspaper is the premier paid weekly community newspaper in South Queens covering Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, Jamaica and Howard Beach.

In Eastern Queens we publish the Queens Examiner. Our motto; “we not only cover the news, but we are part of the communities we serve” sets us apart from any news agency which touches the area. Our rich history and passionate positive coverage allows us to be part of everything which happens in the towns we cover. We are the best advertising medium you could possibly choose.

In Brooklyn the Greenpoint STAR and Brooklyn Northside NEWS covers those great neighborhoods in Brooklyn which are vibrant and growing. The Brooklyn Downtown STAR covers central Brooklyn like a glove.

With a circulation of 30,000 every Thursday, the Queens Ledger is sold at more than 100 newsstands and newsboxes in the Queens communities of Maspeth, Middle Village, Woodside, Elmhurst and Ridgewood. It primarily serves zip codes 11378, 11379, 11373, 11385, 11377, and is mailed throughout all the Queens zip codes. It is the official “legal” newspaper of Queens. In combination with The Queens Examiner , The Long Island City / Astoria Journal , Forest Hills/Rego Park TIMES, Leader/Observer of Woodhaven , The Glendale Register and The Wave we carry more legal advertisements than any other weekly news group in the Borough. www.leaderobservo1.wpengine.com. We have SEVEN weekly newspapers in separate neighborhoods in Queens … and along with each newspaper’s related dynamic web sites we deliver hyper-local news, information and event coverage to distinct areas of Queens – which now has 2.3 million residents. We do it in a print, digital, social and push notification manner that nobody matches. And in Brooklyn, The Greenpoint Star and Brooklyn Downtown Star, are legacy brands that existed before the Brooklyn Bridge was built. Our TWO weekly newspapers in Brooklyn, which boasts 2.5 million residents cover the ‘new’ Brooklyn of the past decade. Our print newspaper readership demographics shows that nearly 60 percent of our readership is 45 +, while 30% is 25-44, with two or more people living in the household. Our digital and social media reach shows that 50% or our users and engaged audience is 40 years of age or above, while 40% is aged 20-39. We find that mature, seasoned individuals trust a news source, and find a good deal of our social media engagement and new introduction is through social digital media. Because our engagement is so diverse our motto is…. “We’re not just newspapers anymore.” We provide advertiser/reader interaction through our digital Daily Emailed newspaper called ‘Morning Buzz’, click here to see the email on our site with websites, community micro-blogs see Maspeth Blog & more, web marketplace, a magazine called It’s Queens – the Magazine, sports leagues Heroes, events, social networking, email communication & mobile news. Our corporate motto is “We’re not just newspapers anymore.” Our philosophy is to create and feed multiple communities of hyper-local news consumers throughout Brooklyn and Queens. Our desire to allow advertisers to target specific groups gives businesses the best use of their resources in bringing customers through their doors.

Current Advertisers

Numbers You Should Be Aware Of

312

That’s the number of letters to the editor we published last year. Letters signify that readers are involved with our newspapers. Some agree with us, some disagree, but they care enough to write.

6,459

That’s how many people on facebook just ONE story on a Maspeth restaurant opening reached in December of 2018. That one story got 19 comments and 35 shares. That's just one of the hundreds of stories we push on social media every week. Now THAT'S EXCITING!

109

That’s how many eyesores of the week we published in our newspapers last year. Eyesores of the week are pictures taken by our staff and our readers. They are pictures of places which have been neglected, contain graffiti or are dirtied. The pictures produce action.

2,761

That’s how many pictures we published throughout our 8 newspapers between December 2015 and November 2016. Local people, places and events are what our local papers are all about. We don’t subscribe to a national wire service because we know our readers pay for local news, local action and neighborhood activities.

3,126

That’s how many news stories we published in our newspapers, web sites, blog and social media posts in the last 12 months. Stories on issues from local news, investigative stories, sports coverage, profiles, live tweets,reviews and local events are what make our papers the most reader friendly source of news available.

655,733

That’s how many hits our web properties received in November 2018. Now THAT'S EXCITING!

9,665

That’s how many Real Estate listings we published in our newspapers and in our Daily Newsticker between December 2017 and December 2018. We see Real Estate as the fabric of a community Newspaper. We believe a real community newspaper has the ear of the Real Estate industry. We take the lead in the eyes of Real Estate agents. TWELVE pages of listings each week, listings of properties sold and informative Real Estate News.

28,122

That’s how many advertisements appeared in our newspapers and digital news platforms from October 2017 through September 2018. These advertisers put their faith in our paper and received response to their marketing efforts. From classified advertisements to our dining and entertainment guide, our ads work. Just ask our 8,000 advertisers. We are proud to be the #1 news and advertising source for all of Queens County and Brooklyn.
All publications carry a Thursday dateline. They arrive on the newsstands Wednesday morning and arrive in the mail Thursday. Newsbox circulation is done on Wednesday and Thursday with additional circulation and refills on Friday. Deadline for news releases: Friday noon. Deadline for display advertising orders: Friday 5 p.m. – for ad copy is Tuesdays @ 12 noon. Deadline for Classified Advertising: Tuesday 12 noon. Read more: Queens Ledger – Breaking news, classifieds, businesses, events in Queens, New York.

Other Readership Numbers

0 %
Have children who attend Private School
0 %
Have children in an organized sport
0 %
Active in a Parish or Congregation
0 %
Own more than 3 credit cards
0 %
Have Health Insurance
0 %
Homeowner

Circulation by Zip Code

LIC, Astoria, Jackson Heights Journal 23,000
11101Long Island City3800
11102Astoria3100
11103Astoria2300
11104Sunnyside1800
11105Astoria, Woodside1900
11106Astoria1200
11368Corona2100
11372Jackson Heights3300
11369East Elmhurst1500
11373Elmhurst2000
Queens Examiner 16,000
11355Flushing4700
11356College Point1800
11357Whitestone1900
11361Bayside1300
11363Little Neck1600
11365Fresh Meadows1200
Rest of Queens3500
Queens Ledger 30,000 (established 1873)
11378 Masepth 5200
11379 Middle Village 4600
11377 Woodside 3200
11373 Elmhurst 3400
11385 Ridgewood/Glendale 2700
11355 Flushing 4200
Rest of Queens 6700
Forest Hills/Rego Park Times 18,000
11375Forest Hills8000
11374Rego Park5000
11415Kew Gardens 3500
Rest of Queens1500
Greenpoint STAR & Brooklyn Northside NEWS 15,000
11211 Williamsburg’s Northside 5,000
11222 Greenpoint 6,000
11206 Williamsburg 3,000
11378 Maspeth 1,000
Leader Observer of Woodhaven & Richmond Hill 25,000
11421 Woodhaven 6000
11414 Howard Beach 3700
11417 Ozone Park 3500
11418 Richmond Hill 3200
11415 Kew Gardens 1000
11420 South Ozone Park 2300
11432 Jamaica 3300
Rest of Queens 2000
Glendale Register 8,000 (established 1935)
11385Glendale4800
Rest of Queens3200
Brooklyn Downtown STAR 15,000
11206 Williamsburg East & Bushwick 3,000
11205 Navy Yard, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene 4,000
11217 Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill
11201 Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Downtown 4,000

QUEENS LEDGER established 1873
LEADER/OBSERVER of Woodhaven & Richmond Hill established 1909
Glendale REGISTER established 1935
LIC/Astoria/Jackson Heights JOURNAL established 1986
Forest Hills/Rego Park TIMES established 1995
Queens EXAMINER established 1999
Greenpoint STAR & Brooklyn Northside News originally established 1898
Brooklyn Downtown STAR originally established 1841, re-established 2004

The Queens LEDGER www.leaderobservo1.wpengine.com
The Queens EXAMINER of Eastern Queenswww.queensexaminer.com
The Forest Hills/Rego Park TIMES www.foresthillstimes.com
The Glendale REGISTER queensledger.wpengine.com
The LEADER/OBSERVER of Woodhaven, Richmond Hill & Howard Beachwww.leaderobserver.com
The Long Island City/Astoria/Jackson Heights JOURNAL www.LICJournal.com
The Greenpoint STAR & Brooklyn Northside NEWS www.greenpointstar.com
The Brooklyn Downtown STAR www.BrooklynDowntownstar.com

Published by Queens Ledger / Greenpoint Star Inc.

Contact Information

Main Offices

45-23 47th Street, Woodside, NY 11377

Phone

(718) 639-7000

Fax

(347) 507-5827

Conference Studio & Corporate Sales office

86-16 Queens Blvd.,Elmhurst, NY 11373

It’s QUEENS ... The Magazine

Mission: “Introducing Queens To The World.”

The Queens our grandfather loved and built is no more. But the “Queens passion” he created here will last forever. “It’s Queens,” a magazine from the company that publishes the “Queens Ledger & Brooklyn Star” weekly newspapers, is a quarterly publication about the life-styles of those Queens hot shots who are paving the way for a new generation.

They are: the developers, the restaurant owners, the doctors, lawyers, educators, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, gallery owners and yes – even the legislators, who are putting into place the plan by which Queens will expand in the next generation. They are the movers, the shakers, the trouble makers of the borough.

How Often: Published quarterly in January, April, July and October.

Printing & Distribution: A glossy magazine 8 inches wide by 11 inches high, 4 color high quality glossy pages throughout. 15,000 copies are printed and distributed through Hudson News on more than 800 newsstands throughout the city of New York. Some are distributed free, some are mailed to 2,500 select residents and 1,000 businesses in Queens, including movers and shakers and policy makers. Subscriptions are $7.95 a year.

On-line: Select pages and stories will be available from “It’s Queens” on line it is at www.itsqueens.com

Our New Media

The Queens Ledger / Brooklyn Star Weekly Community News Group helps companies and organizations use social media to engage with their customers, prospects, and partners in ways that have never before been possible. We do this by building online communities within our 8 web sites while using our traditional newspapers as a driving local news source. The new type of ‘communities’ are important to business all over the borough.

The ‘community’ of today is a ‘community of interest,’ not merely a community of geographic proportions. An online community might be a community of stamp collectors, kite flyers, kids and adults who are members of a sports league, a community of people who take the train to work, movie goers, dog owners, civic activists or students enrolled in a particular school. They are active, have a need to communicate with each other and have a need and desire for others in their geographic community to know about them.

Do you see how you fit into this picture frame we are creating? Can you imagine how many organizations who have members, customers, teammates or business associates who need to be part of a web world like this?

What does this have to do with business and the business of ‘Marketing’?

It’s called Social Media Marketing, and it is making a profound impact on marketing strategies for organizations AND businesses of all forms and sizes.

Social Media Marketing at a local level – with a local news generating organization like ours (135 years of local news coverage) gives you the best chance to attract customers. Our ‘local information web sites’ are full of local news, video, events, classified ads, blogs and more. Marketing through our news web sites augments, enhances, and in some companies, replaces “old” forms of marketing. It is radically different from traditional forms of marketing in a few fundamental and dramatic ways. Hundreds … even thousands of people AND businesses generate information on our sites. They are involved in the news and information because they put it there.

Social Media vs. Traditional Marketing

Social Media Marketing – Web 2.0

Social Media Marketing is defined by a new set of characteristics:

  • It’s a multi-way dialog. Brands talk to customers, customers talk to brands, and – perhaps most importantly – customers talk to each other. This is a new type of engagement that was never possible until the arrival of Web 2.0. It’s NOW. It’s the FUTURE. Get used to it.

It Is Participatory

  • It’s participatory. Social media marketing depends on user participation – that’s what makes it social. To truly be Social Media Marketing, your users must participate.
  • It’s user-generated. Most of the content and connections in an online community are created by the users – not by the brand.

We have FREE Classified ads, blogs, featured bloggers, business bloggers, a list of 45,000 searchable businesses on our site, event calendars, users who communicate with their own community and much, much more. There will certainly be content and conversations that are brand-generated, but they will be the minority. The goal is to get your users to talk.

The Queens Ledger / Brooklyn Star Community Weekly Newspaper Media Group enables Social Media Marketing by building on-line communities that combine four key areas of capability:

  • User-generated content (blogs, wikis, discussions, photos, videos, voting, etc.)
  • Social networking (friend lists, user-created groups, status, presence, etc.)
  • Profiles. Most of the content and connections in an online community are created by the users – not by the brand. The overall goal of our company is to bring in new users by offering them a way to communicate with people in their own in-common focus. We get our users to talk.
  • Enterprise security and control. The users create most of the content and connections in an online community.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing has typically had two major forms:

  • Direct marketing. This type of marketing focuses on directly generating leads and revenue: Its forms include newspapers, magazines, tradeshows, some websites, seminars/webinars, email blasts, direct mail, pop up ads, etc.
  • Brand marketing. This type of marketing is “softer” and seeks to create an image or reputation for the company in the mind of the customer: advertising, public relations, analyst relations, sponsorships, logos, tag lines, etc.

Both of these types of marketing are characterized by a few common attributes:

  • They are one- way, push-oriented and interrupt-driven. These activities are from the company to the prospect. The prospect doesn’t ask for them. They are “pushed” onto the buyer, interrupting them from whatever they’re doing.
  • They are brand-generated. The content comes entirely from the brand to the customer.

Why Now and Not Before?

The new web 2.0 Internet technology, which we use as an engine for our sites, uses social media platforms that have not been available until recently. Without this web technology, you could not connect with someone who uses a product in which you’re interested nor would it be easy to connect with someone who shares a passion that you do? You’d have to find a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, etc. Or go to a user group. All way too hard. Now with a few Google searches and clicks, you can be connected to dozens if not hundreds of other people who can help you. Every bit of content on our site is searchable through Yahoo and Google. Every local blog, ad, business feature package, event, news brief and video clip is Googlecentric.
This is why companies all over the world are combining traditional marketing dollars with social media marketing: it will become more mainstream in the near future. As citywide newspapers lose circulation, local papers that have a focus on local issues and events are taking on a new life. We have the subscriptions, the loyalty, the stability to be more believable, more influential, and deliver a higher ROI than do traditional one-way marketing ‘non descript’ general circulation newspapers where you “push and interrupt” a brand message. Social media marketing connects people to other people who they can trust. It builds brands in an organic way and generates real revenue. This movement is accelerated by the economic downturn, where slashed marketing budgets will mean marketing teams are looking for better ways to spend their dollars.
  • A site user can find a piece of content (e.g., a local news story, police report, blog post, review, event, a discussion reply) that has value to them and quickly determine who provided that content. Is the contributor an expert or a novice on the topic? What is their background on the issue? This adds context to content.
  • A site user can locate a partner-business based on their descriptive information and immediately get in touch with them. A user will see photos or videos and more.

Hyper-Local News - Helping Companies On The Digital and Social Level

BQE Media Does Marketing for Regional Companies – We own a news Company since 1883

Local and regional companies have hit a crossroads in marketing to consumers. Whether it’s B to B or B to C, BQE Media, owners and operators of 9 (hundred-year-old) hyper-local 48-page weekly community newspapers in Brooklyn and Queens, NY as well as borough-wide industry association news has transformed the marketing of dozens of clients by using local news platforms in the digital and social world as well.

We publish the legacy monthly magazine for The Queens Chamber of Commerce and the Queens County Bar Associations monthly newspaper. What that means is that we communicate directly to Queens professionals as their friend, their trusted voice, not merely some stranger on social media trying to get their attention.

BQE Media distributes news through nearly 50 digital news platforms, including multiple daily and weekly email newsletters, hyper-local news websites and social media influencer properties covering local consumer news, business news, entertainment, legal, health care and real estate. Digital influencers have caused disruption in the marketing industry that BQE mediates. Since we publish hundreds of pieces of real news every day, written by dozens of reporters and news influencers, we are able to offer businesses marketing programs that include the positive news that their company engages in. We push it out on our daily news email, real news sites and our news social media accounts.

Whether it’s a restaurant, clothing store, a real estate firm who rents apartments or a fuel company, competitors and social media influencers are able to poke at your brand at any time…. And they do

Regular marketing and branding companies who provide the service of building and operating your web sites and social media accounts can only go so far when it comes to promoting your business. They might not easily engage new prospective customers who trust you. There is so much ‘noise’ out there in the digital and social world it’s hard for consumers to believe much that they come across.

Our goal and mission has been to gain a trusted readership, many of whom pay for their newspaper to be mailed to them each week. Our publications – and in turn our digital properties are seen as that trusted neighbor who is bringing our readers news they care about. We offer the ability for your good work to be published and promoted on our multiple platforms, which reach more than one million news consumers a month. From our print publications, which reach more that 150,000 a week, to our news web sites, which now reach 900,000 visitors a month, to our dozen social media accounts, which reach more than 100,000 followers, we have trusted news engagement. What does that mean to you & how can you get involved with us?

The ability to get a million new people to trust your service.

The ability to get a hundred people who live in a building in Dayton Towers in Rockaway Beach to know who you are.

The ability to get the 1200 members of the Greenpoint YMCA to believe that your fuel company will be reliable enough to fix your boiler the right way.

The ability to drown out that tenant who put a complaint on Yelp about your building. Yep, those are real challenges we have solved for clients who used our news organization to help their brand.

We are hyper-local and we have mailing lists of people who pay to get our news. We compile email lists, lists of subscibers to our web sites for news alerts and have thousands of social media followers who actually look for our news. It’s the Wild, Wild West out there and social media influencers have disrupted the marketing balance. We suggest you used a trusted news source for your marketing and branding.

Our Association feature module optimizes the web 2.0 world for a group or organization with members or customers; they are all part of the Association site and our site. Their customers are all part of our site and their own. We want your community to stay vibrant and active over time, so we find contributors to your site. We’re experienced in ways to encourage and manage user participation so you get the most value out of our on-line community.
Publisher: Walter H. Sanchez
Managing editor: Shane Miller,
Print/Digital News Editors: Benjamin Fang, Jen Khedaroo
Digital Editors: Fionnuala O’Leary, Natalie Rios
Regular Print & web contributors: Austin Havens-Bowen, Bryan Fonseca, Jesse Almonte, Jen Khedaroo, John Sanchez, WFAN’s John Jastremski, Michael Perlman, Jeff Armstrong, George Galvez, Michael OKane, David Quintana, Kathleen Connell, Ed Wendell, Mark Garzon, Nancy Ruhling, Michael Perlman, Emily Gallagher,
Real Estate consultants/experts Alan Mann, Jacques Ambron.
Legal experts/consultants Stephen Hans, Robert Miklos, Paul Kerson.
Digital News Sales & newsticker calendar: Kathleen Connell, Tammy Bekios. Director of Marketing & SEO guru John Sanchez.

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