The U.S. media group is bringing together its newspapers and radio operations using a cloud-based deployment of Eidosmedia’s integrated digital publishing platform.
Cox Media Group (CMG) has adopted Méthode, Eidosmedia’s enterprise-level content management system, to integrate its nationwide portfolio of more than 90 publishing and broadcast brands. This integration creates greater synergy between the group’s diverse operations and shares content across digital properties for CMG’s 20 newspaper and 57 broadcast radio properties.
“The solution we were looking for was one that would cut our time to market, allow us to adopt new technologies quickly, and seamlessly integrate new systems, products, and partnerships,” said Mark Beck, Cox Media Group’s vice-president, technology. “We wanted to spend time innovating new products, not developing basic features.”
“We needed a solution which was robust enough for large-scale deployment, while having the flexibility to adapt to our constantly evolving digital requirements,” said Beck. “Méthode has the features, scalability, and performance of an enterprise-class system, and offers us the right combination of stability, agility, and speed.”
Key to the flexibility and scalability of the solution is a fully cloud-based deployment: every component of the platform, from the editorial environments used by the journalists, to the web and digital delivery servers, is hosted in the cloud and managed 24/7 by Eidosmedia’s global support teams. Freed from the need to purchase, house, and maintain physical servers and infrastructure, the group gets significant cost reductions and gains in continuity and security.
Access to the platform is exclusively through Eidosmedia’s new Swing interface. Swing is a powerful browser-based application providing a customized workspace for every user of the platform, from the journalists and media operators that create the content and manage the websites, to the editors and executives that coordinate production.
This gives the whole operation complete geographical freedom: a user can work from any location, in the field, in the newsroom, or in the coffee shop. Journalists and editors in the field can also file and coordinate copy and media using Swing’s dedicated smartphone and tablet apps.
“This platform has almost zero footprint,” said Steve Ball, general manager for Eidosmedia Inc. “Editorial and administrative users can work from anywhere they choose. The combination of a cloud-based CMS and browser-based access gives the organization enormous flexibility and significant cost savings.”
“This project breaks a number of records,” said Ball. “It’s the largest, most complex cloud-based digital-only operation to be built around Méthode and it sets new standards in terms of cross-channel synergies and distributed teamwork integration.”
At the end of the first phase of the project, approximately 80 CMG brands will be integrated into the Méthode platform. These serve 650 users distributed between the group’s Atlanta headquarters and local newsrooms and reach tens of millions of visitors and viewers each week.
About Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps. Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings.
The company’s operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, more than 60 radio stations, six daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 31 million TV viewers, more than 3.5 million print and online newspaper readers, and more than 14 million radio listeners.
For more information about Cox Media Group, please go to www.coxmediagroup.com
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