Case Study: Forum Communications accelerates digital publishing and newsroom agility with Brightspot CMS

Delivering digital transformation for a trusted publisher of local news across Midwestern U.S. media markets

Forum Communications, a Midwestern U.S. publisher of local news brands, needed to modernize its digital experience across more than 20 publications while reducing reliance on engineering for everyday website changes. Its goal was to consolidate onto a single CMS platform that could better serve journalists, support local digital audiences, and power revenue models like metered paywalls, subscriptions, and digital advertising. Brightspot provided the CMS foundation for this digital transformation.

Using Brightspot’s multisite CMS, Forum Communications migrated its properties to a single platform with configurable workflows, roles, templates, and modern editing tools for articles, video, podcasts, and more. The results were significant: creating a new section dropped from two weeks to just 10 minutes, more than 12 new sites launched in a week, and engineers were freed for higher-value work. Brightspot also helped improve page speed, SEO, mobile experiences, subscriber management, and targeted local advertising across the portfolio.

Forum Communications

Mark Stahura

Senior Product Owner