UTV Sites Go Live
Posted By Gav Richards Friday, 18th November 2011 3:51pm
Today we're excited to launch 13 new radio station websites for UTV Media (GB).
Click a logo to visit their new site.
UTV's brief to us was very clear. They wanted more than just a radio station website. They wanted to be a local portal for each broadcast area.
Local news, businesses and community information needed to be front and center. The sites just had to scream 'LOCAL', playing to the strengths of the stations.
Navigation
Simple and strong navigation was key. It's unmissable on each site, and follows through each page supported by sub navigation on the left, breadcrumb trail at the top, and logical URL structure.
Design
The template had to be clean and minimalist. We decided to utilize the outer background space to showcase local imagery. Following research into each area, we selected a handful of landmarks to feature at the top of each site. So Signal has Alton Towers, Radio Wave has Blackpool Tower, Peak FM has Chesterfield's famous crooked spire, and so on. These images can easily be swapped out for advertising takeover opportunities.
The site homepages feature some nifty dynamic features. Hover over the local news, traffic or events to see more content from each section.
CMS
UTV needed a powerful but easy to use content management system. Their new sites are built on our industry renowned Airwave platform. Feedback has already been fantastic, with staff at each site picking up the system very quickly.
Ewan Miller, Digital Designer at UTV said: "Airwave is in a different league to other content management systems. It's going to improve our efficiency tenfold. Sweet!".
One feature we think UTV will particularly benefit from is our recently revamped Programming Schedule tool. It means that they can set time periods on all the stations to mirror the schedule of Signal 1 exactly. So all they have to do is update that one schedule, and it automatically replicates on all sites for network programming. Not only does this mean the 'On Air' and Schedule pages, but it could potentially include Radioplayer and mobile applications.
We also customized the local directory section especially for UTV, adding video and premier listings for the first time.
Social Networking
We integrated Facebook assisted registration for the first time with these sites. This means that if you don't have a Facebook account or aren't able to use it (say at work) then you can still sign up and log in to the clubs, but those that choose to use Facebook can register very quickly.
And if that wasn't enough, we completely redesigned our CMS interface just before the guys started using it for the first time, making it simpler to use than ever.
The team at each station have been working incredibly hard to populate the sites over the last couple of weeks, and it's very exciting for all of us here at G Media to see them go live.
The trust and support of UTV is only going to help us make our products and services better for all of our radio clients, across the UK and worldwide.
Exciting times are ahead!
We'd love to hear what you think to the new sites in the comments section below.
Thanks
Gav
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Click a logo to visit their new site.
UTV's brief to us was very clear. They wanted more than just a radio station website. They wanted to be a local portal for each broadcast area.
Local news, businesses and community information needed to be front and center. The sites just had to scream 'LOCAL', playing to the strengths of the stations.
Navigation
Simple and strong navigation was key. It's unmissable on each site, and follows through each page supported by sub navigation on the left, breadcrumb trail at the top, and logical URL structure.
DesignThe template had to be clean and minimalist. We decided to utilize the outer background space to showcase local imagery. Following research into each area, we selected a handful of landmarks to feature at the top of each site. So Signal has Alton Towers, Radio Wave has Blackpool Tower, Peak FM has Chesterfield's famous crooked spire, and so on. These images can easily be swapped out for advertising takeover opportunities.
The site homepages feature some nifty dynamic features. Hover over the local news, traffic or events to see more content from each section.
CMS
UTV needed a powerful but easy to use content management system. Their new sites are built on our industry renowned Airwave platform. Feedback has already been fantastic, with staff at each site picking up the system very quickly.
Ewan Miller, Digital Designer at UTV said: "Airwave is in a different league to other content management systems. It's going to improve our efficiency tenfold. Sweet!".
One feature we think UTV will particularly benefit from is our recently revamped Programming Schedule tool. It means that they can set time periods on all the stations to mirror the schedule of Signal 1 exactly. So all they have to do is update that one schedule, and it automatically replicates on all sites for network programming. Not only does this mean the 'On Air' and Schedule pages, but it could potentially include Radioplayer and mobile applications.
We also customized the local directory section especially for UTV, adding video and premier listings for the first time.
Social Networking
We integrated Facebook assisted registration for the first time with these sites. This means that if you don't have a Facebook account or aren't able to use it (say at work) then you can still sign up and log in to the clubs, but those that choose to use Facebook can register very quickly.
And if that wasn't enough, we completely redesigned our CMS interface just before the guys started using it for the first time, making it simpler to use than ever.
The team at each station have been working incredibly hard to populate the sites over the last couple of weeks, and it's very exciting for all of us here at G Media to see them go live.
The trust and support of UTV is only going to help us make our products and services better for all of our radio clients, across the UK and worldwide.
Exciting times are ahead!
We'd love to hear what you think to the new sites in the comments section below.
Thanks
Gav
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