iStockPhoto When it comes to their content management systems, local media companies can agree on just about one thing: The days of a simple relationship with their CMSs are over and done forever.
With their online audiences growing and their digital needs more sophisticated than ever, media companies find themselves demanding far more from their underlying digital architecture in terms of customization, versatility and speed.
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To get those things, digital chiefs face daunting choices: Go with the constricting pool of vendors who cater to niche CMSs for the broadcast and newspaper industries? Build a system in-house for complete customization and accountability? Or take the open-source route to save on costs and maintain flexibility?
Layer in the increasing importance of video, mobile and social media and the migraine-inducing (and months-long) prospect of migrating from one platform to another and it's enough to make anyone long for the Web's early days.
"Back then, broadcasters were looking for turnkey, set it and forget it, the cheapest possible solution to get to market," says Mike Rossellini, director of digital product development at Hearst Television, of the local media's first Web forays in the 90s.
"We're well beyond just repurposing what we aired in our broadcast," says Lisa Bishop, VP of digital media at Gray Television Inc. "We are at that point where we have to be able to create digital-only content from anywhere."
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"It couldn't be more different than when we started, when we were publishing as a TV show to a website," agrees Carla Carpenter, senior VP of digital media at ABC Owned Television Stations Group. "Now in our group we have about 90 end points-plus that we're publishing to, plus those same producers have to publish to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and a variety of social media. Our CMS needs to be able to push information in the right form to all of those locations."
A Longer Shopping List
Broadcasters and newspaper publishers alike say that when they go to market for a new CMS — or just a regular round of diligence to make sure they're working with the best system — their shopping lists are much more complex.
At The McClatchy Co., for instance, which had been using a proprietary Web CMS since 1996, integration with its newspaper publishing CMS was key. "What we were looking for on a core level was tight integration with the CCI NewsGate system," says Christian Hendricks, VP of interactive at McClatchy. "A producer is able to sit at one particular desk and be able to master the multiple universes without having to go in and out of multiple systems."
The company went with Vizrt's Escenic when it committed to overhaul its online CMSs this year.
At Schurz Communications Inc., which owns newspapers and television stations, the needs were even more complex. When the company circulated an RFP in spring 2012, it wanted to find a Web CMS that would bridge its broadcast and newspaper properties to enable content sharing across the company.
"There are still two basic flavors of CMS categories out there — broadcast-centric companies and print-centric companies," says Kerry Oslund, VP of digital at Schurz.
Print-oriented CMSs tend to focus on verticals such as classifieds, obituaries and paywalls, he says. "They speak the language of publishing."
Whereas broadcast-focused CMSs concentrate more on weather, video and mobile capabilities, he notes.
"What we did not see is enough transaction-centricity from the broadcast CMS providers and we did not see enough video-centricity from the print side of the house," Oslund says.
The result was an unprecedented two-vendor solution between Internet Broadcasting and TownNews, which began rolling out earlier this year and is stitched together on the back end through APIs between the two systems.
Bob Mason, chief technology officer at Digital First Media, is currently overseeing the migration of 75 daily newspapers to the Saxotech CMS for its print and online systems, a move potentially complicated by that company's merger in July with DTI as the newly-rechristened Newscycle Solutions.
In the way DFM — and many other media companies — work now, "we're going to create our content and put it online first, then curate it and put it into print later on," Mason says. He notes that DFM was shopping for a system that would accommodate that process, folding the company's print and online workflow into one tool so "one editor could write for both media spaces."
Customization is also at the top of the shopping list, as media companies demand a more bespoke user interface and back-end functionality. The days of the same template set circulating around the industry are disappearing; now everyone wants to "distinguish their property from the guy across the street," Hearst's Rossellini says.
And all of this needs to be done at the breakneck pace at which news consumers' habits and desires are changing. "It's kind of like perpetually changing the engine on a car going 70 miles per hour," says Ron Stitt, VP of digital media at Fox Television Stations. "The pace of development is still constantly accelerating, and the landscape is incredibly complex when you factor in not just the front end but also the underlying platforms, devices, operating systems, display formats, distribution schemes and advertising/tracking requirements."
