Media industry facing big challenges; mulling solutions

Noting that media industry in many countries have suffered fall in circulation and advertising revenue as well as faced migration of consumers to New Media, WAN-IFRA president Jacob Mathew today said the industry itself is thinking of effective solutions to tackle the enormous challenges.

Inaugurating the 20th World Editors Forum and 23rd World Advertising Forum, Mathew said the global economic crisis, which affected media like all other sectors, has shown some signs of easing in some countries but these are "early green shoots" and more time is needed for comfortable recovery.

The media industry in many countries have suffered from falling readership and circulation, declining advertising revenues and the migration of news consumers to the New Media, which is still cashless, Mathew, the Executive Editor of Malayala Manorama, said.

"We are transforming from a print-alone industry to a print-plus-digital industry, thanks to better bandwidths and cheaper smartphones and tablets. Hundreds of newspapers have taken the premium or fremium or metered route for making money from their online content.

"No one knows which of these is the best route, but its heartening to note the impact that content paywalls are having on circulation revenues," the president of World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN_IFRA) said.

At the Conference attended by 1,500 publishers, chief editors, CEOs and other senior news media executives from 66 countries and their guests, ambassadors and other dignitaries, he said the industry is creating another type of "wall", the data wall, which can have an effect on advertising revenues.