Modernizing the European Commission's audiovisual portal

Challenge

A ten-year-old audiovisual portal built on AngularJS, broadcasting official EU events live to 34–36 million views per year. The legacy stack was reaching end of life, the mobile experience was effectively non-existent (0% mobile-first), and several adjacent products around it needed to be maintained and evolved in parallel. The Commission's communication directorate needed the modernization done without interrupting live broadcasting.

Approach

Delivered as a long-running engagement: one autonomous DNA consultant embedded for six years, in collaboration with Smartfox (consulting firm of David R.). Three products were built and maintained. **Audiovisual Portal**: full AngularJS → Angular 19/21 rebuild with real-time updates, hover-play, dynamic grids, advanced filters, and suggestions. **Octopus**: an internal planning tool for EBS (European Broadcasting Service) broadcasts. **European Corporate Player**: a unified media player for every EU institution, iframe-embeddable and adopted by external media outlets including Le Soir and RTL.

Outcomes

• Clicks to access information cut by ~50%
• 34–36M views/year maintained throughout the modernization
• Mobile-first experience taken from 0% to 100%
• European Corporate Player adopted by external media (Le Soir, RTL)
• User satisfaction increased (survey with thousands of responses)