“ We knew the support behind the whole system would be excellent. „

- Janos Turak – New media manager, Chello Central Europe Ltd.

Challenge

Sport1TV is the brand of Chello Central Europe, part of the Chello Media, producer and distributor of 44 international television channels to more than 264 million TV households worldwide. The Sport1TV is broadcasting in many countries in the Central-Eastern Europe region, such as Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Previously, every website of Chello Central Europe was served by a different, custom-developed CMS.  This made content management cumbersome and difficult. Sport1TV wanted to create an integrated system of the TV portals of Chello Central Europe, and a new content management solution was needed to replace the former static websites.  The new CMS would serve as the platform for all of the Chello Central Europe channels -- not just the Sport1TV website.  Thus, further site developments are already planned.

Goals for the new site included:

• Provide additional and useful information related to the channel’s shows, programs and events
• Offer a complementary service to a sports news portal
• Deliver up-to-date, detailed and content rich sports news
• Meet a broad target group ranging from addicted fans to ad hoc sports watchers
• Offer a portal to engage users
• Ability to match content quickly and easily
• Flexible enough to implement further changes to adapt to changing customer needs constantly

Solution

Sitecore CMS was chosen for the new website because it is up-to-date, modern and progressive, and also because of its high degree of customization. The transparent structure of the CMS was also an important factor for the customer to choose Sitecore. To implement all requirements, Sport1TV worked together with CarnationGroup, a Sitecore Solution Partner. After TVPaprika.hu, Sport1TV.hu was the second milestone in the long-term relationship with the Budapest-based digital agency. CarnationGroup delivers digital creative solutions for almost 15 years now. With its offices in Budapest, Bucharest and Vienna and over 100 technologists, creative writers, designers and highly professional project managers the creative firm services clients from various sectors throughout Central Europe.

“We were pleased when the Chello Central Europe chose us for the development of the websites," says Gabor Tamasi, Client Service Director, CarnationGroup. "We knew that from the beginning we had to strive for excellence in every part of the project to create a website that we can be proud of and the client can be satisfied with.”

CarnationGroup took advantage of Sitecore`s flexibility and extended it in developing a special TV magazine module. The TV program administrators can synchronize the online TV magazines with their own internal system. The TV program can be filtered by sport types and live events via a tagging system.

With the aid of a web service, videos and podcasts can be uploaded through a custom developed Sitecore module to an individual media server. Thus, no special third-party module is needed for the video management.  Afterwards, administrators can use and embed the videos to any Sitecore content.

Besides, Sitecore's position in the market was proof of stability and progress for many years. “We knew the support behind the whole system would be excellent," says Janos Turak, New media manager, Chello Central Europe Ltd. "This also helped us in our decision. If we have a problem, there will always be somebody who will help us immediately.”

Result

The new site was successfully launched, and the new Sport1TV website includes articles, blogs and videos of sports news and events, ranging from soccer, hockey and football to individual sports such as tennis, boxing and even chess. In addition to the written content, Sport1TV’s own programs and shows are now integrated into the website.

Sport1TV reports tremendous success with the new website. With position 4,517 on launch day to position 2,000 four and a half months later on the ranking of the most popular websites in Hungary, they note a significant increase of site popularity along with number of site visits and time spent on the website.

According to Janos Turak, New media manager, Chello Central Europe Ltd., “Not only the Hungarian team but also the headquarters in London are very satisfied by the site and its results. Now they can see both long-term and even short-term profit of a new, user-friendly website.” 

Technical Description

Solution Special Ingredients

• Sitecore CMS

• Videos