Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., publisher of The Times of India – World´s largest English broadsheet daily – chooses CCI NewsGate

Cross-media publishing system will involve more than 1000 seats at 5 newspapers with total daily circulation exceeding 5.5 million

April 7, 2008

Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) and CCI Europe (CCI) have joined forces to implement CCI NewsGate as the sole editorial content management and publishing solution for its world-renowned media titles. Included in the implementation is BCCL's flagship publication The Times of India, the world's largest English language broadsheet daily newspaper (circulation 3.75 million). Other BCCL media properties included in the implementation are The Economic Times, India's largest English Financial daily newspaper and the second largest English Financial daily in the world (after Wall Street Journal) with 0.73 million daily circulation; Mumbai Mirror with daily circulation of 0.688 million; and the Indiatimes Internet Portal, with approximately one billion page views per month.

"We have rigorously evaluated many other editorial systems of similar features and stature, and came to the conclusion that CCI NewsGate best fits our current and future requirements and will offer a very good return on our investment," said Mr. Mohit Jain, BCCL's Director, Business & Commercial. "It also gives us enormous confidence to be in the company of media houses such as The Gannett Group, The Axel Springer, The New York Times, The Economist and South China Morning Post."

The CCI NewsGate implementation project will launch in April 2008 with the first product "go-live" by the end of the year. The initial project will involve more than 1000 CCI NewsGate seats with users in 20 locations including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta, logging on remotely to the central servers. CCI NewsGate's unique "Story Folder" concept for organizing multi-media content, collaborative work environment and dynamic planning capabilities across multiple delivery channels will be used in all aspects of BCCL's print and digital content delivery. At the heart of CCI NewsGate is a powerful XML repository based on an Oracle database in a disaster recovery environment. This will provide BCCL's media properties with secure storage and management of vast amounts of content and related information.

Mr. Sankalp Shrivastava, Deputy General Manager & Head – IT, Telecom & Software Procurement – The Times of India Group Business & Commercial Department said, "We are looking at CCI as a key partner which will play a pivotal role in taking The Times of India Group to the next level, in terms of realizing benefits of adoption of technology and fueling our growth."

"While CCI has handled implementations in complex print and digital organizations for decades, we are excited about this partnership because The Times of India Group is one of the world leaders in media and communications," said Dan Korsgaard, Chief Executive Officer of CCI Europe. "BCCL's determination that only CCI is capable of supporting their global media empire further proves that CCI leads the industry in cross media content creation and delivery. This is a partnership built on solid business values, passion for great journalism and shared vision for the future."

About Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd:

Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd is India's premier Media and Entertainment house with interests in Publishing, Television, Radio, Internet and Entertainment. In the last few years The Times Group has grown manifold due to innovative management techniques, state-of-the-art technology and professional management.

About CCI Europe:

Founded in the 1700's as a newsprint company, CCI Europe is today the leading provider of editorial and advertising solutions for multi-media news environments. Our CCI AdDesk, CCI NewsGate and CCI NewsDesk products are the most robust and powerful systems in the industry, and are implemented in news organizations across five continents. We provide the platform to support evolving needs of the world's largest news organizations, and scalable solutions to help smaller media brands optimize growth strategies. Constant innovation and strong customer commitment remain the cornerstones of our business. CCI is an Oracle Certified Partner.