DMI (Digital Media India) entered its 12th year and hosted more than 125 news media executives from more than 40 organisations.
This year’s theme was “Harnessing technology to scale digital business and drive growth.” The conference featured a strong programme facilitating learning and networking opportunities for industry executives and journalists.
The two-day conference began with a keynote address by Andy Budiman (CEO, KG Media, Indonesia). Budiman shared insights from the transformation journey of KG Media, one of South East Asia’s largest media companies and the publisher of Kompas Gramedia. He also touched on how they are creating new growth engines for the group towards a sustainable future.
‘Reaching the promised land of sustainability is a long journey’
“News publishers can do several things to achieve sustainable journalism. We can make our content valuable and relevant to our audience – young and old – by exploring various business models to monetise the engagement and influence we have over our audience and by adapting our operation to remain efficient as we move towards an uncertain future,” Budiman said.
“Reaching the promised land of sustainability is a long journey, but we are optimistic that we are heading in the right direction,” he added.
Day 1 of the conference featured conversations around newsroom transformation, business and monetisation strategies, leveraging video, product thinking to boost audience engagement and drive subscription growth, exploring new revenue streams and deconstructing ad alliances.
Panel discusses AI use, digital strategies and revenue opportunities
One of the highlights from the first day was the panel of C-Suite leaders led by Suparna Singh (Co-Founder & CEO of Frammer AI), comprising Puneet Gupt (COO, Times Internet Ltd.), Aroosh Chopra (Group Director, Punjab Kesari Group of Newspapers). They talked about navigating the Indian digital landscape, and strategising for 2024 and beyond.
“We are using AI, Gen AI, and Predictive AI across all the parts of the ecosystem to drive revenue, reduce costs, improve productivity, and drive innovation in general,” Gupt said.
“As an organisation, we need to be agile, try out everything, select what works well, and quickly discard what does not,” he added, referring to other priorities for 2024. “We plan to go more hyper-local in the digital domain, and that will be the focus for our group,” said Chopra, adding, “We are looking to offer a bundle offer to attract more readers and advertisers to our website, in addition to exploring more options.”
On day 2 of the conference, discussions focused on Artificial Intelligence, subscriptions, data-based decision-making, and diversified revenue streams. Juan Senor, President of Innovation Media Consulting UK, began the day with a keynote address on the “Innovation in News Media World” Report. He presented the 14 business models news publishers could have and suggested that a publisher should have at least four to five of these models in their business at the same time. Senor urged publishers to rediscover their values as original storytellers of what is newsworthy and make strategic choices.
Purva Misra, Chief HR Officer of India Today Group, concluded the conference by saying: “While adopting new technologies such as AI in the workplace, avoid a job-cut mindset. Make generative technology your friend or assistant to get the best results. Create a culture of rewarding experimentation (including failures), and incentivize the adoption of new technology and encourage its use.”
Over 100 entries at Digital Media Awards South Asia 2023
The second day closed with the Digital Media Awards South Asia 2023, which recognised and lauded publishers in South Asia. From innovative data visualisation projects to reader revenue strategies, newsletter ideas, and the use of AI in newsrooms, the awards presented a wide range of inspirational projects.
The 2023 edition of the awards recorded more than 100 entries and featured news publishers competing in 12 Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories.
The Quint, The Hindu, Prothom Alo and BBC News emerged as the winners, amongst others. HT Labs (Hindustan Media Ventures Limited) bagged the overall ‘Champion Publisher of the Year 2023’ Award.
FT Strategies, Quintype, ppi and PubLive sponsored the conference. It was supported by gxpress.net, Indian Printer and Publisher, All About Newspapers, RIND Survey, and Printing Review.
About Digital Media India 2024
Full programme details available at https://wan-ifra.org/events/dmi2023/?pagetype=programme
See pictures from the event on Flickr.
More information from the conference can be found on Twitter with the hashtag #DMI2024. For a calendar of upcoming WAN-IFRA events, please visit events.wan-ifra.org.
Contact – Inquiries
Please contact Magdoom Mohamed, Managing Director, WAN-IFRA South Asia, Chennai, India (magdoom.mohamed@wan-ifra.org) (or) Thai Anban, Business Development Manager, WAN-IFRA South Asia, Chennai, India (thai.anban@wan-ifra.org).