| URL | www.index.hr |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | News |
| Registration | Required for some services |
| Available language(s) | Croatian |
| Created by | Matija Babić |
| Launched | November 2002 |
| Current status | Online |
Index.hr is an internet-only Croatian daily tabloid launched in November 2002 and based in Zagreb. The news site covers politics, business, sports, show business, and features columns covering everything from gossip to political commentary.
Index.hr was founded by Matija Babić and was originally designed as a news aggregation website, providing news content from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The website quickly grew in popularity, and over time more original content produced by the growing staff was being added to the site, until it became a popular media outlet in its own right. In the process, the website gained a reputation for yellow journalism after exposing a series of scandals, the two most notable being the 2003 controversy stirred by a discovered recording of popular singer Marko Perković in which Perković publicly performed a song praising the WWII fascist Ustaše regime,[1] and the 2004 celebrity sex tape scandal involving Severina Vučković, a pop singer.[2]
On account of the website's success, the Austrian-based media concern Styria Medien AG (who owned Večernji list, one of the most widely circulated daily newspapers in the country) had hired Babić as editor-in-chief of 24 sata, a new daily tabloid which targeted "young, urban and modern" readers.[3] 24 sata was launched in March 2005 and immediately established itself as the third daily newspaper in terms of circulation (behind Jutarnji list and Večernji list). However, it was also criticized for sensationalism and poor quality of writing, and Babić was sacked in July 2005. Babić then returned to Index.hr and continued to run the website, currently holding the title of "author and editor of the project".[4]
Index.hr managed to keep its place among the top-visited websites in Croatia throughout the period, and has since launched a number of additional services, such as Bloger.hr (a blogging website) and Igra.hr (a website for online flash gaming). According to Alexa.com analytics compiled in February 2010, Index.hr ranked 5th most visited site in Croatia,[5] and 9th in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[6]