With more than a whiff of anticipation in the room, Jean-Marc De Jonghe's presentation on La Presse's closure of its weekday editions could be a 'must-hear' event for Future Forum delegates.

Organised by industry-owned NewsMediaWorks, the Australian media conference has a reputation for preparing executives for what they might expect in the coming year. And making them feel good about it.

Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood acknowledges that it is not a case of 'if' but 'when' The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald will cut weekday print editions; other publishers including News Corp Australia may be having similar thoughts but keeping them to themselves.

It's less than a year since the Montreeal, Canada, based French-language daily, based in Montreal, announced that after 131 years of publishing it would cease printing weekday editions and move daily content to its tablet app, reported to have cost $40 million to create. The publisher had already been hedging bets by using contract printer Transcontinental - who got to hear only days before - as an alternative to modernising plant.

Vice-president for digital products De Jonghe will look back to the week at the end of last December - when all but Saturday editions stopped - and discuss the impact of the decision.

With the announcement in September 2015 came the news that 158 people - a fifth of the workforce and including union, non-union and contract staff - would lose their jobs, although the 283-strong newsroom is reported to be the biggest in Quebec, Newsroom numbers had grown from 239 in 2011.

Forum organisers say De Jonghe will outline the strategy to transition to a much-awarded app, resulting in a "hugely successful" product for readers and advertisers alike product. "La Presse+ is a must see case study as news brands globally look to strike a balance between their print and digital futures," they say.

The one-day event - at Sydney's The Ivy on September 2 - promises a full programme with topics including influential journalism, mobile content strategy, social media, strategic partnerships, integrating cross-media businesses and newsrooms, how media buying is evolving, programmatic trading, audience data, content marketing, solution selling, the value of paid, owned and earned media and creative best practice. Speakers named so far include Will Lewis (Dow Jones), Blanche Sainsbury (Trinity Mirror), Michael Cooke (Toronto Star), Alisa Bowen (News Corp Australia), Banks Baker (Google), Kerin O'Connor (The Week), Kalle Jungkvist (WAN-IFRA), Sinead Boucher (Fairfax Media NZ), Shayne Currie (NZ Herald), Nicole Sheffield (NewsLifeMedia), Jared Savage (NZ Herald) and Timothy Whitfield (GroupM

Sky News business anchor Ingrid Willinge is MC for the conference, in which artist Fernando Lecuna will illustrate each speaker's presentation in real time. Among other highlights is a presentation on the potential of storytelling in virtual reality with an interactive display from Blowfish Studios.