CNN Philippines + Magnolia
“Magnolia's Stories App is really simple, functional and fast. So I don't have worry about the software – I can just focus on content creation.”
Answering the call for digital content
Launched in 2015, CNN Philippines leverages the global expertise and reputation of CNN to offer first-class news and media. As the Philippines’ predominant English-language news channel, CNN Philippines provides a local perspective to regional and global events, combined with in-depth coverage of the Philippines itself.
CNN Philippines is available on traditional TV networks in the region, but with the shift to digital, consumers need to access media and content online. Hence, cnnphilippines.com was launched to provide the latest news and information from CNN Philippines at the convenience of the modern media consumer.
Sector
Media & Entertainment
Country
Philippines
Highlights
The Challenge
The Challenge
The media business never sleeps. CNN Philippines is no exception.
When the media company decided they needed a new CMS, they aimed to produce more news at a faster rate. Their old system was holding them back, being too slow and inflexible.
Speed was at the top of the agenda. They wanted to gain speed of development, speed of content publication, and ultimately, a faster-breaking news service. CNN Philippines also wanted greater flexibility and the ability to customize and tailor the system to their own needs.
The budget for the project (primarily consisting of the license costs for the enterprise edition of Magnolia CMS and the costs associated with the one developer assigned) matched the total cost of owning the previous solution. The key difference was that Magnolia offered a better return on investment due to increased online traffic and an improvement in other KPIs following the project's completion.
When CNN Philippines embarked on the project, it did not have any in-house Magnolia CMS expertise. While this was a challenge, it was quickly overcome: In just two months, Magnolia had trained the company's developers, and built the new CNN Philippines website. This was thanks to the ease of onboarding with Magnolia, as well as the smooth, easy learning curve—even for CMS novices.
The Solution
The Solution
CMS that is agile and easy to use
Two innovative Magnolia features have transformed how content is created and published at CNN Philippines:
Light Development
Magnolia's unique Light Development Framework (a low-code development framework which enables developers to achieve a great deal of functionality with only light configuration and front-end technologies) empowers developers to build and deploy quickly without compiling, and even without restarting servers. Launching a new experience for viewers, like a microsite for elections, for instance, now happens in a matter of days for CNN Philippines.
Stories App
Magnolia's Stories App (a marketer-friendly content app that enables authors to create compelling stories with free-form content made up of text, images, and videos without any page hierarchy constraints), content producers are empowered to focus on content creation across channels. They get an easy-to-use tool that lets them write stories quickly, with their own creative style, while providing a consistent and reliable output.
The Result
The Result
After just two months and a single in-house developer, CNN Philippines rolled out its new, Magnolia-powered web platform. The media outlet experienced blazing speed to market, along with a lowered total cost of ownership.
For IT, the new platform is much easier to use and deploy than their previous solution, as they can now launch microsites in just a matter of days, and can achieve many other goals without any additional support.
Magnolia also empowers business users to focus on content creation without technical limitations or clunky user interfaces. Each editor at CNN Philippines can now publish up to 10 stories per day, solidifying the brand's position as a leading local media outlet.
months of development only
stories per editor, per day
“Magnolia's Stories App is really simple, functional and fast. So I don't have worry about the software – I can just focus on content creation.”
“I especially like Magnolia Light Development. It allows me to deploy without compiling or restarting the server.”
“How can we produce more news in a much faster way? How can we get a better customised solution? Those were the main reasons we started to look for a new CMS.”
