Platform dependency and long-term growth strategies for Indian digital news businesses were discussed during a round-table at the Digital Media India 2026 conference.
Taking part were LV Navaneeth (The Hindu Group), Sumanta Datta (ABP Network) and Sowbhagyalakshmi Tilak (The Printers Mysore) with WAN-Ifra’s Thomas Jacob (pictured top).
Some 85-90 per cent of revenues and most profits for legacy publishers come from physical products, LV Navaneeth pointed out. “It is not either print or digital; there is a need to protect and grow physical while doubling down on digital efforts,” he said.
The two-day event in Delhi – now in its fifteenth year – attracted 140 media executives from more than 50 organisations, and remains a key forum for South Asia’s news publishers on digital transformation, revenue development, and emerging technologies.
It was preceded by a masterclass introducing a ‘design thinking’ approach to data and engagement, led by Vertika Kanaujia of Financial Express editorial operations.
The conference opened with a keynote by WAN-Ifra chief executive Stig Ørskov, who outlined five transformations shaping the future of journalism and media businesses – a balanced revenue model, taking control of the AI journey, building audience-first newsrooms, embracing the news creator economy, and a focus on audio/video.
The first day’s sessions covered audience engagement, reader revenue, AI adoption, and emerging business opportunities, with speakers from Brut India, Times Internet, Manorama Online, Newslaundry, Prothom Alo, NDTV and Amar Ujala.
AI remained a central theme throughout the conference, with discussions examining how publishers could adapt to changing patterns of content discovery, audience behaviour, and monetisation.
The second day featured conversations on generative AI’s impact on news businesses, audience intelligence, newsroom automation, and digital transformation, and included speakers from Indian Express, Jagran New Media, and Collective Newsroom.
Vertika Kanaujia argued that the page view, long treated as digital newsrooms’ default measure of success, was becoming an unreliable one. “Once page views became the target, headline-chasing and clickbait followed,” she said.
WAN-Ifra also led an Newsroom Innovation Study Tour through four Delhi newsrooms: Times Internet, The Quint, Collective Newsroom, and Brut India, covering AI-driven personalisation, mobile-first trust-building, multilingual scale, and data-led video formats.
Winners in the Digital Media Awards South Asia 2026 were honoured on the conference’s second day, having been announced in June (see report).
Three publishers took the lion’s share of prizes: The Hindu led with seven wins spanning AI, audience engagement, marketing, and audio, and was named Champion Publisher of the Year. HT Media Group followed with six wins, while Collective Newsroom took three. Prothom Alo, Manorama Online, and The Daily Star each picked up two wins.
Pictured above from top: Round-table participants LV Navaneeth, Sumanta Datta, Sowbhagyalakshmi Tilak and Thomas Jacob;
WAN-Ifra chief executive Stig Ørskov with Amar Ujali head of product Dhruv Wali;
Times Internet chief operating officer Puneet Gupt (left) with Alisdair Jones, business development director of Base Media Cloud and WAN-Ifra chief operating officer Thomas Jacob;
(and above) winners of the Digital Media Awards South Asia 2026 competition