Indian publishers were urged to “be better custodians of the great digital pivot” in an address by INMA chief executive Earl Wilkinson (pictured) at its South Asia summit.

The virtual event – spotlighting the region’s transformation and growth path – attracted 609 participants.

Contributors included HT Media, Business Standard, ABP Network, the Morning Context, TV Today, Media.Monks, Nielsen Media, Prothom Alo, and Taboola, with global keynotes from INMA, Innovation Media Consulting Group, Print Power and the Reuters Institute For Media Studies.

Innovation Media Consulting Group president Juan Señor discussed the digital revolution’s new phase, backed by data, AI and insights. This is due primarily to the Web 3.0 requiring publishers to focus on charging for content, mastering digital storytelling and reinvesting in quality journalism, he said.

Meanwhile, a two-pronged approach to monetisation is working for traditional media houses – investments in data platforms, personalisation, first-party data, pricing (along with micropayments), and video (including short-form) monetisation have emerged as focus areas for transformation, according to a panel discussion from India with HT Media managing director and chief executive Praveen Someshwar, Ashish Mishra (co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Morning Context), TV Today digital chief executive Salil Kumar, and ABP Network chief executive Avinash Pandey. Traditional media houses had a two-pronged approach to monetisation: reach (via advertising), and ‘going deep’ (via subscriptions), as compared to start-ups focussed on a product-first strategy built largely around reader revenue.

Nielsen Media India’s Dolly Jha – see How to win from digital and grow towering trusted print – reassured publishers with the view that print advertising ROI was competitive in the short-term as well as long-term; Smita Salgaonkar of India’s Media.Monks said publishers should be designing reader segments by measuring content performance; and Taboola’s APAC vice president Chanan Fogel spoke of contextual targeting and maximising lifetime value of users, “the next opportunity for publishers”.

Other contributors included Print Power Europe managing director Ulbe Jelluma, Neeraj Sharma of Accenture CMT, INMA’s Readers First Initiative lead Greg Piechota, Prothom Alo’s editor Matiur Rahman, and Aditi Shrivastava, co-founder and chief executive of PocketAces - FilterCopy in India.

Federica Cherubini, head of leadership development for the Reuters Institute for the Study for Journalism, shared a wide range of insights for editorial teams from the institute’s global Digital News Report 2022: selective news avoidance is growing over time, and gateways for accessing news are changing.

She also discussed the changing news habits and attitudes of younger audiences and the contribution of email news in monetisation and engagement. Audio and podcasts are continuing to increase in popularity, along with interest in climate change.

More coverage of the South Asia News Media Summit at INMA.org, while registrants received access to the livestream along with recordings and associated presentations.