Dries Buytaert

Pierre-Jean Duvivier, Head of WebFactory at Edipresse, shared some remarkable data points with me. Edipresse is one of Europe's biggest media and communications companies. It is a traditional print company that publishes more than 200 titles, including some leading European newspapers (i.e. Le Matin, Le Temps, and 24 heures).

Pierre-Jean told me that they converted 11 newspaper and magazine websites to Drupal in 18 months. The reason for adopting Drupal was that it is cheaper, faster, and more stable than their old content management system.

Today, some of Edipresse's biggest media properties are on a shared Drupal platform that delivers 30 million pages a month. Since they switched to Drupal, they cut their global IT cost by 75% and grew their online traffic by 220%. On average, it takes their internal Drupal team 40 days to migrate an existing newspaper site to Drupal, so I think we can expect to see more Edipress sites moving to Drupal.

I've mentioned it before. Many large media companies are in bad waters. Although traditional media companies have had enough advance warning that the internet was changing their game, either they underestimated the risk or they figured it wouldn't apply to them. Many have waited so long to embrace the web and to adjust their business models accordingly that their existence is now being threatened. With advertising revenues declining, and a global economic downturn upon us, life isn't getting easier as a traditional publisher. Edipresse has set a great example of how Drupal can be used to help turn the ship in a record time.