Challenge
Find a better way to deliver program data and accompanying materials to the International Affiliate Base; at the same time, simplify the management of rights information and programming orders.

Solution
Develop a comprehensive Intranet for their International Affiliates. The site provides a high degree of personalization in order to address the different needs of each affiliate's user community. Users include on-air, marketing and programming staff. The site employs a new database that helps internal History Channel staff manage "rights" information easily. A&E's solution also provides enhanced searching, browsing and ordering capabilities for end-users. In addition, the programming database offers an image index with over 2000 high resolution images grouped by program, streaming audio and video used in Promo previews, downloadable scripts, and more. Site content is updated and kept relevant via a web-based content management system accessed by non-technical History Channel staff. The staff also utilizes the content-management system to update press releases, gallery entries and the database itself.

Result
Channel rollouts happen more efficiently now that the new tool is in place. Affiliates have direct, online, real-time access to new information and material in minutes which previously took them days or weeks to find and/or receive via mail. Shipping costs for images, scripts and promos have been greatly reduced and existing affiliate satisfaction is rising dramatically.