Archant To Relaunch Web Offering For New Age Of Online Journalism

Published 15th October 2007

SDL Tridion and Amaze to provide publisher with enhanced service and hosting facilities...

London 8th October: Archant, the UK's largest independently-owned regional media business, is to overhaul its web presence to support its rapidly growing online audience. Working with SDL Tridion, the leading provider of global web content management solutions, and Amaze, a web technology solutions company, Archant will revamp the group’s hundred-plus Web sites to make them more accessible and interactive for users.

Archant is one of the top five UK regional publishers producing daily and weekly titles with a combined circulation of three million copies per week. Its local newspapers and magazines are published throughout the South East and Greater London and traditionally its online presence acted as a support to this media. However, it has developed a strategy based on brands which are channel neutral across print and web and is in the process of upgrading the web element of each of its local brands. The changes will make the online experience as rich as possible for its audiences, and as attractive as possible for advertisers.

This meant adding audio, video and online reader comment functions across the sites and the introduction of a ‘geotagging’ system, which will let users prioritise content by geography and subject. The new sites will attract and engage visitors through a combination of high quality multi-media content, appealing aesthetics and ease of navigation.

Archant chose SDL Tridion because of its need for a robust web content management system that could act as a basic editorial system for all of Archant’s operations - both on and off the web. For this reason, Archant wanted web content management software which does not require specialist web experts to operate, as existing editorial staff will be responsible for uploading and updating all content. SDL Tridion’s easy to use platform is the perfect fit, enabling more than 600 Archant users, as well as readers themselves to personally upload content to the sites.

Amaze was selected as the professional services partner to SDL Tridion, thanks to its expertise and history of successful projects. With vast experience of working with SDL Tridion in the past, Amaze has an established understanding of its technology, making it the ideal partner.

“SDL Tridion has a strong track record in supplying Web Content Management systems to the publishing sector and this, twinned with Amaze’s expertise in design and implementation, made them the safest choice,” says Ian Davies, Director of Business Development at Archant. “We were also impressed by the BluePrinting function, which allows any changes made to filter down through the full body of Web sites. Our aim is to provide more content, greater user accessibility and interactivity and greater depth to the content that we do provide. We want to have a much higher level of consumer engagement and be able to provide blogs, feedback forums and videos - all the functionality people demand from a Web site today.”

“Archant has a highly appealing service to offer its customers and SDL Tridion’s effective content management system can help ensure that online information is always consistent, up-to-date and accurate throughout the organisation’s operations across the South East,” said Terry Hall, Sales Director, UK & Ireland at SDL Tridion.

“The recent Newspaper Society Annual Regional Press Survey, which found that the number of regional press in the UK has increased by 25 per cent over the last year, illustrates the importance of local news,” commented Stuart Melhuish, CEO, Amaze. “By exploring fresh news ways of broadening its news service, Archant Group can ensure that it is at the forefront of news distribution in the East Anglia region.”

Archant will start rolling out its updated Web sites in May 2008 and plans to have a hundred-plus sites up and running within three months of this start date. The first Web sites to be launched will be the West Suffolk Mercury and the Evening Star in Ipswich.