There's a synergy between speakers including Patrick Daniel and his WAN-Ifra India audience as they address the issue of falling print advertising revenues.

They have the luxury of time in an Indian market which is still print-positive; the Singapore Press Holdings editor-in-chief has so far enjoyed the luxury of strong profits in a market his company dominates.

The 170-year-old publisher with a vision to be "Asia's leading media organisation" saw a need to prepare for change when revenues started falling five years ago.

Daniel - who is responsible for SPH's English and Malay newspapers, about half the business - says the problem was not about audience, but about revenue, as Google and others started "eating our lunch".

A group programme which set out to transform its newspapers, diversify revenue sources, cut costs and "rethink the way we operate" while still maintaining high journalistic standards, proved not to be enough, and newspaper-based initiatives had to be introduced.

First, newsrooms had been brought together as part of moves to increase productivity, with journalists filing into a "river" to which every platform had access once a story was online. Content was monetised and pushed out "at times people consume it", with analytics used to drive digital engagement.

Diversification has seen the number of magazines in the SPH portfolio grow from five in 2003 to more that 100... an opportunity which did not exist with newspapers.

Buying events, "one by one", added adjacencies in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, and SPH also moved into property, acquiring two shopping malls - setting up a listed property trust - and put $100 million into a fund to invest in media start-ups.

With newspapers still generating 70 per cent of profits and "a huge profit stream", the group cuts were still "overwhelmed by the market," Daniel was told.

"I decided I must diversify my own business," he says. "We had to produce newspapers and make extra money."

The result has been an investment in data services, investor education and golf, expanding into platforms such as radio - "cheap and very profitable," Daniel says - and book publishing. Two initiatives have been SPH Golf (and its Swing magazine) and a commercial art services business called Think.

"It's time for editors to think like publishers," he says.

A key challenge has been productivity, with the integration of tasks and "getting it right first time" making contributions. There's a great opportunity for us if you integrate and produce content that reaches people.

"It's a business worth looking after," he says.

Daniel says he was the first to set productivity targets for editorial, using systems and metadata to count stories: "I count what I can count, but use judgment about quality and impact."

Presenting stats from a new World Press Trends report, WAN-Ifra chief operating officer Thomas Jacob reiterated the message that audiences were not going down: "The issue is revenue," he says... and that most is not reaching the media industry.

He warned Indian publisher delegates that they needed to understand disruption patterns and the change that was taking place and 'make sure you're not caught in the same situation as the US papers".

They were urged to master the digital eco-system, and create an entrepreneurial mindset and culture in the newsroom. "Hire a digital-savvy chief technology officer inside the newsroom, and have a chief content officer who understands the various platforms and can optimise audience engagement," Jacob says. "Also learn from best practice and invest in skills development."

Later Nicholas Dawes told how HT Media used the "very concrete metaphor" of tearing down of the old newsroom to convince staff that the Indian publisher was responding to changing publishing needs.

Gone were the old newsroom with its "crazy walks" between offices and key staff, in favour of a new radial plan built of clusters of three-seated tables. As work draws to a close, Delhi is becoming the hub of a national operation with a "coherent sense of Hindustan Times-ness".

Dawes, who is the company's chief editorial officer, says, "We are already seeing the willingness of reporters to engage."

Analytics are exposed to all staff, and "form the basis to start a conversation about the stories and audience".

At the end of the second day, the WAN-Ifra India event has already delivered value across its three streams - newsroom, printing and crossmedia advertising summits.

A Wednesday highlight was a presentation by Shadi Rahimi, deputy producer at Al Jazeera's AJ+ platform, which uses social media tools to deliver a multimedia news service.

With no website, it uses Twitter, Facebook and a YouTube channel to present stories, and has become the second most popular Facebook publisher in less than a year.

And from India's ESPNcricinfo, Gaurav Kalra told of the use of video clips and conversation to make a platform for the country's cricket tragics the biggest single-sport website in the world with an average 25 million uniques.

Publishers working to attract a younger audience have been honoured with the presentation of this year's World Young Reader Newspaper award, with creators from all over the world given a couple of hours to share their strategies.

And of course, much more, including a well-supported expo with more than 50 exhibitors.

The events continue tomorrow, with streamed sessions and contributions from WPF director Manfred Werfel and Bennett, Coleman chief operating officer Shrijeet Mishra, and a closing kenote from Rainer Esser, chief executive of Germany's Zeit Online.

-Peter Coleman

• Full reports in September's GXpress Magazine print edition.