The annual WAN-IFRA India conference organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) got off to excellent start today with nearly 400 industry delegates attending the two-day event happening on 21 and 22 September at Kolkata, the metropolis in the east of India.

At the opening session today, Chandra Sekhar Ghosh, Founder, Managing Director and CEO of Bandhan Bank, India, explained how the banking industry is in a way similar to the media industry in that both address millions of customers and work to create unique experience for their customers. At Bandhan Bank, business ethics, consumer focus and corporate social responsibilities are the values that keep them going, ones that are very relevant to the media industry.

Manfred Werfel, Deputy CEO, WAN-IFRA, presented the World Press Trends, WAN-IFRA’s annual update of the newspaper industry worldwide (see photo, right). He noted that the global newspaper circulation revenues are larger than newspaper advertising, a trend identified last year and that the audiences have become publishers’ largest source of revenue. He suggested that publishers focus less on the product and more on the experience, which was also reflected in the keynote presentation earlier. Find the right business models using big data and insights, Werfel said.

"In the cusp of a print-digital transition"

The conference, now in its 24th edition, is taking place for the first time in Kolkata and has participants from more than 20 countries. D D Purkayastha, Managing Director & CEO of ABP Group, Kolkata, and a WAN-IFRA board member, who spoke earlier, said India is in the cusp of a print-digital transition and digital startups are taking flight. He suggested traditional publishers should innovate and collaborate to be relevant in the print-digital world.

The conference, which is co-sponsored by The Indian Newspaper Society, the apex body of Indian publishers, has three parallel programmes:

• Newsroom Summit for editors
• Crossmedia Advertising Summit for advertising/digital media managers
• Printing Summit for print production managers

The conference also includes a foyer info-booth expo where 15 leading solution providers to the news publishing industry are showcasing their products and services.

Later today, the winners of the Best in Print Competition, organised by WAN-IFRA in Asia, and the winners of South Asian Digital Media Awards will be presented with trophies. In the evening, the winners from India of the International Colour Quality Club (INCQC) 2016-2018, the competition for world’s best newspaper printers, will be congratulated.

More than 35 speakers from India and abroad are sharing their business experiences on a variety of subjects. The list of speakers includes:

• Sarah Schantin Williams, Co-Founder, Institute of Media Strategies, UK
• Ulbe Jelluma, Marketing Manager, Print Power, Belgium
• Jay Lauf, Publisher & President, Quartz, USA
• D N Mukerjea, Editor – Fortune India
• P K Philip, General Manager – Works, Malayala Manorama, India
• Justin Myers, News Automation Editor, The Associated Press, US
• Shreyas Sigita, Industry Head, Google India
• Ritu Kapoor, Co-Founder, The Quint, India

Full details of the conference are available at http://www.wan-ifra.org/india2016. The event can be followed on Twitter with #wii2016 and on Facebook @wanifraindiaconference.