Lisbon-based Global Media Group owns some of the oldest and most prominent media outlets in Portugal, including daily newspapers Diário de Notícias and Jornal de Notícias, the sports-focused O Jogo, and radio station TSF. In January 2023, the 13 Global Media Group brands reached more than 4.3 million Portuguese-speaking people online through their websites and apps.

But this large stable of media brands also presented a challenge. Until recently, each brand produced, managed, and distributed its own content. Some websites used Newsgen, a proprietary content management system (CMS) designed specifically for news organizations, while others used separate WordPress installations.

“It was very complex to manage,” says David Marques, Global Media Group chief information officer. “It required large amounts of infrastructure, which affected the efficiency of content production and distribution.”

Global Media Group decided to build new infrastructure that puts content at the heart of their digital ecosystem. With support from the Google News Initiative (GNI), the company built the Digital Experience Platform, which features modules for user data management, identity management, digital asset management (DAM), business intelligence and analytics, paywalls, recommendation tools, and unified content management (UCM).

The UCM module is a core element of the project. Based on a headless CMS architecture, a backend-only content management system, UCM allows Global Media Group to manage stories, audio, images, and video from a centralized location.

“We wanted to create a platform that would help our brands collaborate and share resources, so that they could cover the same stories from different angles and offer deeper coverage,” says Marques.

Global Media Group brands can access uploaded content for distribution on a variety of platforms, including apps, websites, and OTT streaming. When editors update content, all brands receive the new information, and journalists have a content repository to help them go deeper with their coverage.

“This platform streamlines content production,” says Diogo Andrade, Global Media Group head of innovation. “We’ve seen a 30-percent increase in the amount of content produced across brands and a 50-percent increase in the content publishing speed.”

The new Digital Experience Platform also delivers flexibility on the front end, allowing Global Media Group to design new websites and apps independent of content. Readers gain a consistent, easy-to-navigate experience across websites, mobile apps, and social media. They can switch seamlessly between devices without losing their reading progress or preferences. This enhances engagement and encourages users to stay with the content longer.

Another important benefit of Global Media Group’s new platform is that it significantly enhances understanding of consumers because it allows the company to analyze reader engagement with articles, videos, and social media posts. In line with data privacy regulations, data on user interactions, including click-through rates, time spent on content, and shares, provides quantitative metrics to gauge reader interest and identify patterns.

For example, staffers at information and entertainment site N-TV can track user engagement on their lifestyle blog. If they discover that articles related to sustainable living and eco-friendly products attract more readers and shares, they can combine this data with user demographics to conclude that environmentally-conscious millennials form a significant segment of their audience — and they can create even more content that appeals to them.

In the next phase of the project, Global Media Group plans to use smart segmentation and advanced AI technologies to categorize content based on factors like user behavior, interests, demographics, and preferences. This will allow Global Media Group brands to deliver personalized and relevant content to each user.

On the front end, Global Media Group will introduce features, such as lazy loading to improve their web performance through Core Web Vitals.

“We consider the new platform a success,” says Andrade. “It changed our processes and expanded the tools our journalists have to do even better reporting. GNI was instrumental in helping us reinvent our digital approach.”