Digital event and WEF South Asia Summit set for 19-20 February 2019

Digital Media India 2019 & South Asia Summit 2019 in Mumbai, 19-20 February 2019

By
Priyanka Sharma
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157
WEF South Asia Summit
Digital Media India 2019 & South Asia Summit 2019

WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media India (DMI) conference is back and this time it is bigger, together with World Editors Forum South Asia Summit. The 8th edition of the digital event and WEF South Asia Summit will bring together news publishers and editors from South Asia, on 19 and 20 February 2019 at Hyatt Regency, Mumbai. Both the events will be held in parallel and will witness discussions on a variety of topics ranging from digital trends to revenue strategies, newsroom transformation to women in news and journalism in a socially connected world.

The event expects to attract about 200 senior news publishing executives from India and abroad. CEOs, CDOs, senior editors and journalists, digital editors-in-chief, CMOs, digital revenue strategists, heads of sales, media buyers and advertising agencies are expected to attend the event.

Themed ‘Driving Revenue in Digital’, DMI 2019 will dive deep into strategies for increasing reader revenue, harnessing technology as a strategic driver of business, and managing partnerships in the digital future. Several case studies, coupled with workshops make this conference a must-attend event for executives engaged in the digital media business. The hot topics for the event will be digital transformation, revenue strategies, native advertising, Indian language web, and online video.

WEF South Asia Summit 2019 will feature leading editors and business leaders from India and abroad, discussing some of the hot pressing issues such as newsroom transformation, social media impact on journalism, combating fake news and gender parity in newsroom. The summit will provide a lot of thought for action for editors and journalists in the region.

Welcoming the move to bring together WEF South Asia Summit 2019 and Digital Media India 2019, Mukund Padmanabhan, chairman of World Editors Forum India Chapter, said, “It is an excellent move to bring these two events together. Newsrooms today are undergoing a digital-led transformation. And digital teams have ushered in a huge change in the way newsrooms operate today. I am confident that this event will provide an platform to hear and discuss best practices in newsrooms and the opportunity to implement new ideas.”

The World Press Trends 2018 report shows that digital circulation revenues of newspapers are growing, up 18% compared to the previous period. Publishers are harnessing sophisticated tools and technologies to maximize the value of their audience data and to build strong and trusted relationships with their readers. And audience revenues surpassed that of advertising revenue.

The parallel programs of Digital Media India 2019 and World Editors Forum 2019 promise to discuss all these trends and opportunities, over two days. The event will be followed by a post-conference workshop on ‘Digital subscription revenue’ from 21 to 22 February at the same venue.

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.

– Naresh Khanna

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