Putting Trust in Proven Technology
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RIND SurveyMarch 2019 | Volume 40| Issue 3| Rs 50 www.pressinstitute.in A Journal of the Press Institute of India - Research Institute for Newspaper Development PUTTING TRUST IN PROVEN TECHNOLOGY Bennett Coleman & Co has invested in a Ferag conveyor and compensating stacker technology for the mailroom at its newly built Manesar printing plant located in Gurgaon, Haryana, which began operations last year. The double-width, single-circumference printing machine (4/1) capable of producing up to 80000 newspaper copies an hour was ordered from Japanese manufacturer TKS. It is now equipped with the proven combination of universal conveyor (seen above) and high- performance compensating stackers, courtesy Ferag. In Manesar, the bundle formation configuration has been extended by a third MultiStack that processes pre-programmed odd bundles. In addition to the partial edition of The Times of India, BCCL in Manesar also produces the English-language insert, Gurgaon Times, and the Nav Bharat Times daily newspaper in Hindi. See page 28 for more. 1 FROM THE EDITOR Digital advertising seems to have finally come of age igital advertising in the US is finally bigger hundreds of publishers in Japan – an initiative that Dthan print and television. Kurt Wagner, brings together content providers and distributors writing for Recode, a technology news website so that both can minimise costs. While major outlets that focuses on the business of Silicon Valley, says can source news at no cost, smaller publishers can digital advertising businesses like Facebook and reach a far larger audience with both ends earning Google will be bigger in the US this year than ad revenue. It is a completely new platform with traditional advertising businesses like TV, radio, no other service like this in Japan or overseas, and newspapers. He points to new estimates from Hornyak says. The platform has some 6 million eMarketer which show that US advertisers will readers and 400 publishers using it, which includes spend more than $129 billion on digital advertising major brands such as Quartz and Huffpost. With in 2019 — more than the $109 billion they plan to its new English language site, Nordot is focused on spend on ‘traditional’ advertising. growing English language publishers and increasing It would mark the first time ever, Wagner says, its presence outside Japan. that the US digital ad business made up more than If all of that forms one side of the story (digital 50 per cent of the market. Facebook and Google scoring), here is the other. Roy Greenslade has are estimated to bring in a combined $77 billion just written for The Guardian about the Metro in the US next year. The losers – newspapers newspaper making a healthy profit based on and magazines; eMarketer estimates that print a simple business model: advertising revenue – advertising will decline by almost 18 per cent 1.43m Metro newspapers were picked up by people next year. Print and television aren’t the only each morning last month, thousands more than industries that have been impacted, Wagner adds. the weekday issues of the Sun and the Daily Mail, Digital publishers that rely on Facebook and which rely on high sales on Saturdays to boost Google to distribute their stories are also coming their circulation averages, he says. to the realisation that the two companies aren’t The Metro, according to Greenslade, is a newspaper sharing the wealth. that sticks closely to the demands of the market. Indeed, digital revenue is a key subject for “Most obviously, its editorial formula makes much discussion these days. How can publishers claim of being apolitical. News without bias. News to use. their share of digital revenues? That was the topic News to amuse. Lots of content packed into cleanly for a panel discussion at the WAN-IFRA Digital designed pages, with few stories longer than 300 Media India Conference this week in Mumbai words. There is no investigative journalism. Metro (see page 6). There is a broad consensus on the doesn’t hold power to account. It does not serve fact that while print media is in better shape in the people with public interest news, although a India than it is in many parts of the world, the case could be made that its coverage of the main need for publishers to grow their digital revenues events of the day is informative in itself, and all is becoming increasingly crucial. information has value. No one is forced to pick While on the subject of ad revenue, it is interesting up copies from the container bins at stations and to note that Japan’s Nordot is building a common on buses throughout the land… Advertisers like it publishing platform to unite media outlets and because the core readership, with an average age of lower their costs. An article by freelance journalist 39, is far younger than that of the popular paid-for Tim Hornyak for Slice Japan says Nordot, a titles.” It goes without saying that we keep learning Tokyo-based joint venture launched in April 2015 all the time. with backing from Japan’s biggest news companies, Kyodo News Digital and Yahoo Japan, is a common Sashi Nair publishing platform that offers 500000 articles from [email protected] March 2019 RIND Survey 3 RIND Survey March 2019 | Volume 40 | Issue 3 How can publishers claim their share of digital revenue? 6 Building a data culture, and how 10 How Google is helping bring language publishers online 13 Who said the newspaper reading habit is dying? 15 A flavour of distinct political leanings — history of Tamil journalism 18 Industry Updates 28 General News 39 Events Calendar 41 Cover page image: WRH Global AG / Ferag AG C o n t e s 4 RIND Survey March 2019 BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH WAN-IFRA How can publishers claim their share of digital revenue? In the news media business, digital revenue is a tough nut to crack. Is it possible for publishers to take a larger share of the revenue pie? A panel at the Digital Media India Conference in Mumbai discussed the possibility of changing this trend. Neha Gupta was present at the venue and fi led this report echnology giants such as Facebook and comes from readers, in the form of subscriptions, Google dominate the digital advertising memberships, events etc. Tspace. Apple and Amazon are looking to foray into the news space, which does not leave Digital advertising Paytm and Flipkart far behind in closing in on their Axel Springer SE, the largest publishing house share of the advertising pie. Start-ups have grown in Europe, which owns more than 50 brands in aggressively; Daily Hunt, a news aggregator with the areas of journalism, classifi eds, marketing more than 150 million monthly unique visitors, is media, native advertising. Based in Germany, the attempting to raise $100 million. company is on track to declare revenues of about It is clear that traditional Indian news media faces 3.5 billion euros. Seventy per cent of its revenue considerable competition from other platforms comes from digital and 85 per cent of the digital and cannot bank on the luxury of print revenues revenue is from advertising. Eighty per cent of for long. Outside India, a few brands seem to be that advertising revenue is from digital advertising. riding high on the success of having zeroed in on The media group’s focus is on journalism but a three-way approach to revenue. privileges advertising substantially over reader- based revenue. Reader revenue The New York Times implemented its paywall in E-commerce space 2011. The company clocked an overall revenue of Naspers, a multinational Internet and media US$ 1.7 billion in 2018, with $709 million coming group based in South Africa, has journalism at from reader revenue. The brand, which has its core but has also built substantial revenue branched out into travel, cooking and crosswords, streams focused entirely on digital companies and aims to reach $800 million from reader revenue e-commerce. Although the company is on track by 2020. Sixty per cent of NYT’s revenue now to declare $7.5 billion in revenue, this year, news 6 RIND Survey March 2019 media represents only about 20 per cent of the revenue. The brand invested in Tencent, China in 2011. The stake Naspers bought for just $32 million in 2001 is now worth $175 billion. The panel comprised Bharat Gupta, CEO, Jagran New Media and Anant Goenka, executive director, The Express Group. It was chaired by Rajiv C. Lochan, director and CEO, The Hindu Group. The aim of news media in India is to protect journalistic integrity, said Lochan. How do the approaches differ from those used abroad? Photo: WAN-IFRA Here are excerpts from the discussion: (From left): Anant Goenka, Bharat Gupta and Rajeev Bharat Gupta: How well we know our audience C. Lochan at the panel discussion. (Credit: @dinkaran on Twitter) is where the digital journey begins. Brands need to know how the audience is consuming content and run it profi tably. What does digital journalism what they want to consume. We need to fi gure mean for your brand? out a path between connecting with readers and Gupta: For Jagran, display advertising accounts offering them content. It becomes clear through for the maximum revenue – about 60 per cent. examples of Axel Springer SE and The New York Our focus, right now, needs to be there rather Times, that every brand offers different product than jumping onto the subscriptions bandwagon. propositions – do we want to reach out to a mass Digital provides us with about 3 per cent revenue, audience or establish a niche? within which we explore the opportunities Anant Goenka: Indian news media is letting it presents.