What a difference a year makes, the period since the 2013 WAN-Ifra India event in Bangalore only serving to emphasise that the bustling south Asian giant is not immune from the challenges facing the rest of the world.

Regional committee chairman Kasturi Balaji – who is a director of publishing giant Kasturi & Sons – stressed the “challenging environment” from the start, and was later to contribute practical ideas about how it could be addressed through newsprint use.

Opening the 22nd annual WAN-Ifra India conference in Delhi this week, he also spoke of issues of “blurring of lines” between business and editorial, and the question of identifying future readers.

Other speakers among a strong two-day line-up filled in the detail: From WAN-Ifra chief executive Vincent Peyrègne’s interpretation of last year’s industry figures, through the practicalities of print and paywalls, to the “can’t live without it, can’t live with it” relationship with Google.

And much more.

Peyrègne noted that while print still accounts for 93 per cent of news publishers’ revenues, “for every $1 made in digital, $7 is lost in print”. And reported a 47 per cent increase in newspaper digital advertising revenues to what is still “a relatively small proportion”, acknowledging the take of the giant in the room, (yes, Google again).

That “digital gains can’t make up print losses,” was a reality later confirmed by editor-in-chief of The Age in Melbourne, Andrew Holden, talking about attempts by the Fairfax Media metro and its Sydney stablemate to monetise its websites.

The dramatic change of “a few short years” had seen publishers move from an 81 per cent dependency on advertising revenues to 46 per cent in 2013, Peyrègne says… but later Holden was to admit that the Australian publisher was “under no illusions that (digital revenue growth) will save us”.

That the WAN-Ifra figures had circulation falling by only 10.25 per cent in North America against 19.59 per cent in Australia/NZ and Europe’s 23.02 per cent was only thanks to the five-year reporting period.

Peyrègne’s take was that “unless we crack the revenue issue, we are destined to produce mediocre products with nothing to differentiate themselves”. He described a market scarred by a lot of interference – much of it from mobile publishing, again dominated by Google – “for which we need to be prepared”, and pressed increasing the engagement of digital news audiences” as the biggest challenge.

And four more foundations for success: Embracing disruptive technologies, forging strategic partnerships – especially at CMO and CIO level – learning from innovation and start-ups, and “defending your digital rights”.

Of which there was more later, with Axel Springer corporate sustainability and EU affairs head Florian Nehm telling how the German giant was among publishers taking the fight to Google through legal objection to the use of “snippets” and unfair search tactics.

Somewhat ironically, he was speaking just after an upbeat Kartik Taneja, Google’s Indian head of channel sales, had urged publishers to “show up or be left out”… to “know the moment” and “be there every time”. He cited Spir, Ringier and Hearst as Google partners and says the search engine giant “understands the need to work with publishers”.

The conference delivered more than 40 key speakers, a quarter of them from overseas, to an event which tackled the disruptive technologies of mobile publishing alongside those of printing newspapers in a country where demand for them continues to increase.

Parallel newsroom and crossmedia advertising events attracted specific audiences, with some shared sessions.

Among highlights were Mint editor R. Sukumar on the roles of social media and integrated newsrooms, Andrew Holden on Fairfax’s paywall, and Manorama Online’s Mariam Mammen Mathew on her newspaper’s transformation into a digital publisher. “Digital revenue alone is not enough to pay my editorial team,” she echoed.

From Dutch paywall cooperative Blendle, Thomas Smolders told how publishers there had united to offer a single-subscription service, and there were paralells with the Indian alliance described by HT Media’s Shantanu Bhanja.

And finally – before delegates themselves took off – Bangkok Post photographer Sitikorn Wongwudtianun had a take-off of his own… a drone demonstration which reprised a popular presentation at a WAN-Ifra event in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Whether drone journalism would become essential or become a threat depended on the way in which it was used: “You decide whether you fight for the freedom to use it,” he added.

Next year’s conference will be in Mumbai from September 2-4.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: MariamMammen Mathew

On our homepage: Axel Springer’s Florian Nehm