The National Enquirer is targeting a younger audience with EnquirerPlus, a new iPad app that will be updated daily with the latest entertainment news.

While American Media Inc. currently offers digital editions for tablets for 12 of its titles, EnquirerPlus is the first enhanced app that includes video, audio, a social media integration and other features and functionalities not available in the print edition. The new app features exclusive articles, photos and videos covering top celebrities and newsmakers.

?We felt it was time to introduce the National Enquirer to a new generation,? said Kevin Hyson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of American Media Inc., Boca Raton, FL.

?Our primary goal is to establish the National Enquirer with a new generation of consumers in a way that continues to the tradition of the National Enquirer as being first with some of the bigger stories,? he said.

?Doing it as an iPad app, we have the ability to use video and audio that we can?t put in the print edition.

Exclusive content
EnquirerPlus was designed to reinvent well-known gossip brand The National Enquirer for a younger audience by reaching them via tablets with an interactive experience.

Designed to be an immersive and user-friendly experience, the inaugural issue features more than 35 stories, hundreds of photos and exclusive video showing Whitney Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina.

The app will be updated daily with the latest entertainment news as well as feature stories created exclusively for a digital audience. The app also contains stories from the print edition that have been rewritten for a younger audience.

A social media integration will enable readers to tweet directly from within the app. With a single tap, readers will be able to join the conversation about their favorite celebrities while also being able to stay on the page that they are viewing.

The app is available to download from Apple's iPad Newsstand. American Media plans to also make the enhanced mobile app available on the Kindle Fire, Nook and other tablet platforms.

The publisher is promoting the new app via an iAd campaign on the iPad, in the New York Post iPad app and on various Web sites.

A new experience
Currently, 12 of American Media?s titles have digital editions that are available on different tablet platforms. These digital titles account for approximately 4.5 percent of the publisher?s total print circulation.

The EnquirerPlus is the first enhanced app for one of the publisher?s titles. Going forward, the company plans to build enhanced apps for all of its titles.

The first issue of EnquirerPlus is free to download. Subsequently, single copies can be purchased for 99 cents or $2.99 for a month's subscription.

American Media Inc. titles include Star, Shape and Men?s Fitness. The publisher?s magazines have a total circulation of almost seven million and its digital properties reach an average of ten million unique visitors each month.

?The National Enquirer has been around for 75 years, it is an iconic American brand and everybody knows it,? Mr. Hyson said. ?What we are introducing is a new Enquirer ? it is different than the print edition and is skewed much younger with all of the enhanced new media experiences that people expect.?