The much-anticipated switch of News Corp Australia’s tabloid dailies to the Méthode platform starts next week.

Adelaide’s Sunday Mail went live on the new EidosMedia multiplatform editorial system this week, and SA daily The Advertiser is set to follow.

Similar changeovers are planned for Brisbane’s Sunday Mail and Courier-Mail next week, with the Herald-Sun in Melbourne and the Daily Telegraph in Sydney the week after.

The daily go-lives follow successful transitions across News’ community newspapers.

SA, WA, NT and Tasmania editorial director Melvin Mansell has told The Newspaper Works’ News New that Méthode will make publishing easier across all platforms.

“We’re still developing our capabilities, but the big thing is that it’s a system which gives you the ability to gather the material and publish wherever you want to,” he said. “The big opportunity for us is that our focus has to change from publishing a newspaper, to publishing news.”

The rollout across all of News publications in Australia – the biggest such installation in the world – is part of a $60 million project to enable staff to break news faster across platforms… and reduce the time taken and cost of doing so. A dashboard provides data on how stories look – and are performing – online, and will make it easier to optimise presentation and formats.

Mansell says the biggest challenges in adapting to the new system were faced by production staff, with reporters enjoying a “relatively straightforward” transition. He describes the implementation as “one of the most ambitious projects that the company has undertaken. Levels of organisation across the country have been extraordinary,” he says.