RiverheadLOCAL and SoutholdLOCAL are community news websites for the two towns of Long Island's North Fork on the East End of Suffolk County, New York. The company was founded by husband and wife team Peter Blasl and Denise Civiletti in January 2010, when they launched RiverheadLOCAL.com. In March 2014, they launched their second site, SoutholdLOCAL.com. Revenue: Advertising.
Denise Civiletti is the former co-publisher and executive editor of a small family-owned chain of weekly newspapers on eastern Long Island. She and her husband, Peter Blasl, a news photographer with previous sales and entrepreneurial experience. Both dedicated community journalists, they set out to provide authentically local, professionally gathered and reported news for their community. Their sites have been embraced by the community and enjoyed consistent strong growth— in both audience and revenue.
Social media, especially Facebook. We have 22,800 likes on our RiverheadLOCAL page and 11,220 likes on our SoutholdLOCAL page as of March 6, 2017.
Our breaking news coverage engages audience. We are known as the go-to source for breaking news as it happens in our community.
RiverheadLOCAL was given the "Spirit of Riverhead" award by the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce in 2013. Our sites won a Best News Website award from the Press Club of Long Island in 2014 and an award for best use of social media for our live coverage of SuperStorm Sandy in 2012 (also from Press Club of Long Island.) We won an award for audience engagement from the NY Press Association in 2015. Denise won a Writer of the Year award (2nd place) from NYPA in 2015 also.