Media and entertainment

Media and entertainment software development

We build publishing, library and subscription systems for broadcasters, publishers and streaming services. Media and entertainment software development has its own rhythm. Traffic ticks along quietly for weeks, then a big story breaks or a series drops and everyone arrives in the same hour.

A camera on a tripod in a production studio

One catalogue for everything with rights attached

Publishing, library and subscription systems built to cope with sudden traffic peaks.

Systems we build

  • Publishing systemsEditorial tools with scheduling and embargoes
  • Asset librariesEasy to find, with versions and rights
  • Subscriptions and accessPaywalls and tiers on every device
  • Video deliveryAdapts to connection, resumes on any device
  • Rights and schedulingEnforced by the system, not memory
  • Audience reportingViews across channels joined for editors
Discuss your project
  • Reply within one business day
  • Start within one to two weeks
For newsrooms and studios

Media software from archive to screen

Publishing systems

Editorial tools that keep up with a newsroom on deadline, where a scheduled or embargoed piece goes out at the right minute.

Asset libraries

Your video, audio and images in one searchable place, each file carrying its versions and usage rights.

Subscriptions and access

Paywalls, free trials and plan levels that work the same on a subscriber's phone, laptop and TV.

Video delivery

Streaming that adjusts to the viewer's connection and picks up exactly where they left off.

Rights and scheduling

The system knows what can be shown, in which countries and until what date, so nobody has to remember.

Audience reporting

What people watched and read across every channel, pulled into reports your editors will open.

Where media projects get hard

It usually starts with the library. Files are scattered across shared drives, cloud services and people's own folders. Nobody is quite sure which cut was approved, and the rights to a clip are buried in an email from two years ago. Most of the value in a media project comes from pulling all of that into one catalogue, with the rights stored alongside each file.

Then comes the traffic. A single story or release can bring in a year's worth of ordinary visits in an hour. We build so the heavy pages are cached (stored ready to serve instantly) and anything that can't be cached slows down gracefully instead of taking the whole site with it.

Rights, embargoes and access

Rules every release must respect

  • Rights and licensing. Each file records where it can be used and for how long, and the system checks this before anything is published.
  • Embargo and scheduling. If a piece mustn't go out before a set time, the system holds it back. Nobody has to watch the clock.
  • Accessibility. Captions and transcripts, with players and pages built to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
  • Subscriber data. Payment and viewing history are handled as personal data, and cancelling is easy to find.
  • Content classification. Age ratings and regional restrictions are applied at the moment someone presses play.

Systems we usually connect to

Media asset and archive systemsStreaming and delivery networksPayment and subscription providersAdvertising and sales platformsAnalytics and audience measurementSocial and syndication channels

If your content management system, asset library and streaming setup work well, we connect to them as they are. Moving a library of large video files somewhere new is a big decision, and it should be yours, made on purpose. If a move does make sense, our cloud migration checklist walks through it step by step.

From archive to audience

How a media project unfolds

  1. Catalogue what exists

    We track down your files, the duplicates and the rights behind them. Expect this to take longer than you'd guess.

    Week 1 to 3
  2. Attach rights to assets

    Usage rules get written onto each file, so they no longer live only in one person's memory.

    Week 3 to 6
  3. Build the editorial path

    We build tools around how your newsroom or studio really works and try them out during a live news or production cycle.

    Week 6 to 14
  4. Prepare for the peak

    We set up caching, run load tests and agree a plan for the day a story takes off without warning.

    Week 14 onward

Most media projects land within these ranges. Yours will depend on how big the archive is, how tangled the rights information has become and which publishing dates we need to avoid. Our software development process explains each stage in more detail.

After launch

What editors and viewers notice

Assets found quickly

A producer types what they need and finds it, instead of searching old drives and message threads.

Fewer rights mistakes

If the licence doesn't allow it, the system stops the piece going out, so there's nothing to take down later.

Peaks survived

Caching and load testing keep your site running when the biggest story of the year breaks.

From broadcasters and publishers

What media teams ask us first

Usually, yes. Most asset systems let other software search them and fetch files, so we build around yours. That saves moving huge video files for no good reason.

We store the rights as fields on each file, entered once and checked automatically whenever someone tries to publish it. If nobody knows the rights to a clip, the system blocks it rather than guessing.

We plan for that from day one. Every page that can be cached is, and the parts that can't, such as account pages, are built to slow down quietly without taking the site down.

Planning a launch or a new archive?

Tell us what you publish and your target date, and we'll share how we'd approach it.