Eastern U.S. local media company chooses BLOX CMS for hosting and content management
PHILADELPHIA – Calkins Media, Inc. has relaunched all of its television website properties — WWSB.com (Sarasota, FL), WAAYTV.com (Huntsville, AL) and WTXL.com (Midway, FL) — on TownNews.com's BLOX CMS, a cloud-based content management system designed specifically for news and media publishing organizations.
TownNews.com's products allow Calkins Media to bridge the gap between their broadcast and digital properties by managing all from one central publishing system.
"Because we operate online, print and broadcast media, we need a system that helps us manage our web, mobile and print products from a single location. TownNews.com offers this solution," said Guy Tasaka, chief digital officer at Calkins Media. "We can simultaneously push content to our print, online and mobile editions."
"TownNews.com helps us streamline our operations while delivering the hyper-local content that our users expect."
The change was made easier because Calkins Media has a history with TownNews.com.
"It was a simple decision," Tasaka said. "We already host our newspaper sites, including PhillyBurbs.com, with TownNews.com. BLOX CMS is very easy to use, but it's flexible. It doesn't box us in like some other products. We were also very impressed by the speed TownNews.com is iterating their product. It was clear they were growing the product."
Calkins achieves multi-channel integration through the use of several TownNews.com products, including BLOX CMS, BLOX Total CMS and Touch 5 Mobile. BLOX Total CMS lets writers and editors seamlessly publish content to their print and online editions. Touch 5 Mobile is an add-on for BLOX CMS that gives a site a responsive design to automatically adjust for display on smartphones, mobile devices and tablets.
The move into broadcast media represents a new market for TownNews.com, which has traditionally catered to the online needs of print media. The firm provides hosting and content management services to over 1,500 media outlets.
"From the very beginning, BLOX CMS was designed for the newsroom," said TownNews.com CEO Marc Wilson. "Broadcast and print newsrooms really aren't so different. They both need powerful, versatile systems that stay out of the way so they can deliver the articles, multimedia and other content their users crave. BLOX CMS addresses the requirements of both markets."
TownNews.com also offers services designed to help publications build revenue in a competitive online environment, including classifieds, classified verticals, online ad order entry and marketplace.
"We help sites generate income," Wilson said. "With integrated modules for metering, banner management, classifieds, business directory and more, BLOX sites bring in revenue from day one."
"After a lengthy internal discussion, our goal was to move all our print and broadcast properties onto a single CMS platform. Once the decision was made we had a very short time period to move on to the TownNews.com platform. We gave TownNews.com an almost impossible deadline, and working with our corporate and local teams they came through with flying colors," Tasaka said.
Calkins Media, Inc. is a privately-held local media company with newspaper, television broadcasting and interactive properties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and Alabama. Calkins Media, Inc. products reach more than 3,000,000 consumers each month across all markets.
TownNews.com provides state-of-the-art online, publishing and revenue solutions. We work with more than 1,500 news websites, producing more than 1 billion ad impressions, and nearly three quarters of one billion page views monthly. Member newspapers include dailies, weeklies, shoppers and specialty publications from groups and independents in all 50 states and Canada. TownNews.com was founded as the International Newspaper Network (I.N.N.) in 1989. The firm's founder, Marc Wilson, serves as CEO and general manager. Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) of Davenport, Iowa, became majority partner in 1996. We are headquartered in Moline, IL.
For more information:
Aaron Gillette (agillette@townnews.com) - TownNews.com Director of Marketing
