The Media Leaders Summit 2023, which is set under the topic “engaging your audience” is the ultimate gathering for news publishers in the Middle East. Meet your peers from all around the world, gain strategic insights into latest trends from industry experts, as well as explore the latest regional and international trends.
Discussion Topics
Registration and welcome coffee
Opening of the conference
Keynote: Thrive or Dive?
Five Innovations and One Single Strategy to Pursue in the Age of AI and Web3 – Discover the Latest Innovations in News Media from Our Comprehensive 2023/4 Report. The annual Innovation in News Media World Report on behalf of WAN-IFRA by INNOVATION Media Consulting is always a prescient trend indicator for the news industry. We have invited the INNOVATION team to join us to unpack all its findings in what is always a thought-provoking session.
Coffee break
Engaging with your audience
Targeting specific audiences and producing content that serves their needs can be an effective strategy for media companies looking to grow their readership and adapt to the digital age.
Want to know how important it is to engage your audience if you want to succeed as a digital news platform? What does your audience want and what can set you apart? If you’ve managed to grow your audience, how can you keep them hooked? Marium Chaudhry will discuss how a digital news startup can make a big mark in an already saturated industry but trying something new.
Indian Express started premium sections in their portal that resulted in dramatic increase in its digital subscription numbers. What are the success secrets to add new subscribers, and importantly retain existing subscribers?
Networking Lunch
A Data-driven Customer Journey
A data-driven approach helps news media companies identifying new opportunities for growth and revenue generation.
Overall, a data-driven customer journey is a powerful tool for businesses looking to optimize the customer experience and drive growth. By leveraging customer data and insights, businesses can make more informed decisions and deliver a more personalized and effective customer experience, which can ultimately lead to increased customer loyalty and revenue growth.
With news organizations increasingly focusing on their digital subscription business, finding ways to improve acquisition and retention of subscribers has become key.
News publishers are seeking to achieve this in a personalized and efficient manner with the aim to implement a fully data-driven customer journey.
Media companies building their data strategy are facing challenging times, not only due to evolving regulations – though this is a key aspect this year. We will hear how the Financial Times Group has successfully managed to align itself with common goals, data ownership and platform relationships.
Wrap-up of the day
Welcome coffee
Trust in journalism in the age of news avoidance?
Applying constructive journalism in the Middle East
Recent research shows that news avoidance is a challenge that publishers worldwide are increasingly worried about. The Founder and CEO of the Bonn Institute for journalism and constructive dialogue, Ellen Heinrichs, will talk about the reasons why people actively avoid the news, how constructive journalism can help to counter this trend and why latest experiments show that a constructive strategy can even help newsrooms with the monetization of their journalism.
Coffee break
Embracing a digital-first approach
– reaching wider audiences and engaging with customers in a more meaningful way
Embracing a digital-first approach means prioritizing digital channels, platforms, and technologies in all aspects of your business strategy and operations. This involves understanding the evolving needs and preferences of your target audience, and leveraging digital tools to create a more effective and engaging customer experience
A digital-first approach also involves creating a culture of innovation and collaboration. This means fostering an environment in which employees are encouraged to experiment and share ideas, and where cross-functional teams can work together to develop new digital solutions and strategies
Alan will share the lessons he has learnt in transforming newsrooms to succeed digitally. What are the first things to address? What are the key skills you need in your business? What are the pitfalls to avoid? At its heart is a focus on audiences and their varying and ever-changing needs.
It all starts in the newsroom – to make better news products and create more functional new organizations we need to rethink how we do things – What roles, structures and management style do you need to think about how to thrive in an increasingly visual and audio-driven news ecosystem.
Adam Roberts, Digital Editor at the Economist will talk about the challenges when transforming a 180 year old, global, weekly publication to a digital first one, while maintaining all the same high standards as before.
Networking Lunch
How should your newsroom approach artificial intelligence technologies, including the recent dramatic developments in generative AI such as ChatGTP? Based on five years of LSE research and collaboration with newsrooms around the world through the JournalismAI Project, this talk will highlight the practical and ethical opportunities and risks.
Norway’s Adresseavisen is both a traditional publisher and a thoroughly modern one. First published in 1767, and based in Trondheim, it is the country’s oldest daily and part of Schibsted and Polaris Media.
It is also one of the very few newspapers in the world that has already been working with both AI and robots in their newsroom for several years.
Christer S. Johnsen, Editor and Head of Editorial Development, will share what they’ve done right, what’s gone wrong and what’s coming up next.
Wrap-up: end of conference