The challenge
A news and media publisher came to us with too many tools and too little time. Each story passed through several editorial and distribution systems before it reached a reader, and every hand-off added cost and a fresh chance of error. The group needed news publishing software it owned outright: affordable to run, able to hold a large archive, and able to send stories to partner platforms without manual work.
News depends on speed and accuracy, and this setup was costing the newsroom both. Repeated checks kept each story consistent across tools, but they slowed every piece down.
We started with a consultation to map how the newsroom really worked. Packaged products came with heavy license fees and limits on what the team could change. A custom system removed the licensing bill and left the group free to add features as it grew.
What we built: one news CMS behind every channel
One content management system now sits at the center of the newsroom. A web application and Android and iOS apps are built on top of it, on Node.js, Angular and MongoDB.
Stories in any format. A piece can be an article, audio or video. It can sit in several categories, carry an inline gallery and take a placement priority.
Reader features. Category browsing, article search, comments, push notifications and RSS feeds, on whichever screen a reader prefers.
Aggregator syndication. Stories flow to news aggregator and mini-app platforms with no one re-posting them by hand.
Advertising. Ad networks connect straight to the platform, and home-page slots run from a self-hosted Revive ad server.
An admin module. Editors schedule stories, moderate comments and pull reports from one screen.
Recurring features. Masters for horoscopes, elections, parties and locations, with poll APIs so readers can take part.
Staff, authors and categories are managed in the CMS, and access is set by role, so each person sees the tools their job needs.
Rolling the platform out to a second title
The group later asked us to bring a second daily title onto the same footing. Rather than build again, we redeployed the proven CMS for it. That title's newsroom had working tools for categories, articles, authors and staff permissions on the first day.
Around the CMS we set up a three-tier cloud server and built the public website: home page, category and sub-category lists, article pages, galleries and dynamic pages. We migrated the title's existing articles into the new system, then connected it to aggregator, in-app ad network, RSS and self-hosted ad channels.
How it works day to day
Take a sub-editor closing a story on an election night. She files it once, tags it into two categories, adds a gallery and gives it a high placement priority. The story goes up on the website and in the apps, and flows out to the connected aggregator feeds.
A live poll on the same page lets readers take part, using the election and party masters already in the CMS. On the home page, ad slots are filled from the paper's own ad server, not a third party's schedule.
The next morning, the desk pulls reports by article, date, platform, category and author to see what traveled furthest.
The result
The first platform was delivered in under a year, from consultation to launch.
More than five years of published stories moved across from the old platform.
One system now handles creating, producing and distributing news, in place of several separate tools.
A second daily title runs on the same CMS, with its old and new stories in one place.
Because the CMS was already proven, the second rollout could focus on the website, the archive migration and distribution.
What the research says
Most Indian phones run Android. Android held 93.89% of India's mobile operating system market in September 2026, against 6.05% for iOS, according to web analytics firm Statcounter (Statcounter). Android and iOS apps fed by the same CMS mean readers on either phone get the same stories, alerts and video as the website.
Content now travels through APIs. In the 2025 State of the API report by API platform vendor Postman, a survey of more than 5,700 developers, architects and executives, 82% of organizations had adopted some level of API-first approach (Postman). The publisher's single CMS works on that model, feeding the website, the apps and news aggregators from one source.
Platforms change the rules. Meta ended support for Facebook Instant Articles in mid-April 2023 (Adweek). A CMS that feeds many channels lets a publisher drop one without rebuilding.
Where AI fits next
These are possibilities, not features in use today. A model could suggest headlines and summaries shaped for each aggregator, for a sub-editor to approve. It could also tag archive stories by topic and person, so older reporting resurfaces in related links.
Planning something similar?
Before you build a newsroom CMS, answer these questions:
Which channels must a story reach on publish, and which can wait?
How much archive needs to move, and in what shape is it today?
Who controls home-page ads: an outside network or your own server?
Could a second title or edition run on the same system later?
Read how to weigh custom software against off-the-shelf, explore our custom software development services, or see our work for media and publishing.
