MAXI-MAGcase study

01. The context

Bauer Media France publishes several high-traffic magazine titles, including Maxi-Mag, Télé 7 Jours and Télécâble Sat. When Bauer France's Digital Brand Manager contacted ArtWhere in 2020, the relationship already existed: ArtWhere was already hosting Télécâble Sat and was asked to extend the collaboration to Maxi-Mag, a general-interest women's magazine with several hundred thousand visits a month.

The aim was to centralise the technical management of Bauer's digital properties with a single provider, able to handle application maintenance, hosting and ongoing development across all of the group's websites.

02. The challenge

Maxi-Mag is a high-traffic website with constraints specific to the media sector: intensive daily publishing, a competitions module on a dedicated subdomain (jeuxconcours.maxi-mag.fr), management of a large database and absolute continuity of service. The handover from the outgoing provider had to happen without any editorial disruption.

VOLUME & TRAFFIC AT THE TIME OF TAKEOVER

3.5M — Page views/month

3.5 — Pages/session

+ — Dedicated competitions module

February 2020

FIRST CONTACT - COLLABORATION REQUEST

Bauer France's Digital Brand Manager contacted ArtWhere for a hosting and maintenance proposal for Maxi-Mag. ArtWhere was already hosting Télécâble Sat and knew the group's constraints well.

February - March 2020

AGREEMENT & HANDOVER OF ACCESS

An agreement was reached with the outgoing provider. ArtWhere received the necessary access and set up monitoring and collaboration tools with the Bauer teams. The entire ArtWhere technical team was brought on board.

October 2020

START OF APPLICATION MAINTENANCE

The collaboration was formalised. The ArtWhere teams took charge of day-to-day technical follow-up, with a new contact on the marketing and communication side.

2022

MAXI-MAG REDESIGN PROJECT

ArtWhere was commissioned to scope and cost a complete redesign of the website on WordPress. Several rounds of discussion were held to refine the scope and priorities.

2024

AZURE INFRASTRUCTURE MIGRATION

Bauer asked ArtWhere to document and migrate the technical architecture hosted on Microsoft Azure. ArtWhere provided complete documentation and supported the infrastructure transition.

March 2026

DNS MIGRATION & INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSITION

ArtWhere coordinated the DNS migration of all Bauer domains (maxi-mag.fr, cuisine.maxi-mag.fr, cafemaxi.fr…) to the new infrastructure, working directly with the technical teams of the parties involved.

03. The solution

ArtWhere set up a flexible maintenance arrangement, with two service levels tailored to the needs of an editorial team: rapid intervention within 24 hours or regular monthly follow-up. A dedicated online collaboration system allows every request to be tracked in real time.

Hosting is sized on the same infrastructure as Télécâble Sat, already proven for this type of media traffic. Staging and production environments are clearly separated, with rigorous deployment protocols.

Cloud hosting

Azure infrastructure sized for the traffic of a national magazine published daily.

WordPress maintenance

Application maintenance, updates, bug fixes and priority interventions within 24 hours

Custom development

Functional enhancements, performance optimisation, integrations tailored to editorial needs.

Migrations & transitions

Takeover from the outgoing provider in 2020, Azure migration in 2024, multi-domain DNS coordination in 2026.

04. The result

Five years after the first contact, the ArtWhere–Bauer relationship covers the group's main websites, in both Belgium and France. ArtWhere has established itself as a trusted technical partner, present at every stage: taking over maintenance, redesign, infrastructure migration, and support through complex transitions.

Responsiveness, an understanding of the specific constraints of high-traffic media websites, and the ability to manage complex transitions have been the key factors in this lasting relationship.

About management