INMA has announced the inaugural INMA South Asia Media Festival to take place from 6 to10 August 2018 – a five-day event offering new ideas, best practices and growth strategies for change agents in South Asia news media. During the festival, INMA will guide attendees through a maze of questions and issues.
Big issues will be discussed in the conference and a deeper look into companies will take place in study tours and workshops. The 12th annual South Asia News Media Conference aims to provide executive-level insights into the unique strategies and best practices of South Asia’s publishing industry.
The study tours will explore brands, news media organizations and digital start-ups with an eye for disruption, innovation and growth opportunities. The two half-day workshops will heavily focus on digital innovation and print circulation. Both workshops will feature real-world, detailed case studies and group discussions in a sharing environment.
Why should you attend? The International News Media Association is the world’s leading provider of global best practices for news media companies looking to grow revenue, audience and brand amid profound market change. This is a program created by peers in leading publishing houses in South Asia with an aim to grow the print + digital model so unique to this region.
Who should attend? The program is designed for CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, audience builders, brand heads, digital heads, revenue drivers, strategists, catalysts of change and leadership teams in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (senior and middle management). The INMA South Asia Festival will take place at the Shangri-La-Eros hotel in New Delhi. The agenda is available on www.inma.org/southasia
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
