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Tag: Digital Publishers

  • PubNation summit 2021: Tracking the next big surge

    PubNation summit 2021: Tracking the next big surge

    Mumbai: The last 18 months saw the publishing industry adapting to several new trends, leading the way to new business models and use of the latest technology. Data became the new currency, and aggressive efforts were made to mine this data to gauge the audience behaviour that also went through a constant change during this unprecedented time.

    So, when digital publishers, advertisers, brands and technology providers came together at this year’s PubNation summit 2021 organised by Indiantelvision.com these evolutionary changes became the centre of the discussion.

    Publishers & tech platforms shared their learnings from the year gone by and weighed in on the major growth drivers for digital publishing which lead to higher stickiness for the users and more revenue for the platforms. Dentsu Creative Group India CEO Amit Wadhwa spoke about the rise of digital which has in fact proved to be a ‘saving grace’ for the industry in the past couple of years.

    HT Digital Streams chief content officer Prasad Sanyal spoke about reinventing business models, the changing workflows and tapping into the opportunity of education and video. While HT has completely shifted its focus to pivot to a digital-first approach, Sanyal said the next six to eight months will be crucial in determining the outcomes of those decisions.

    The panellists also discussed how most publishers today have data analytical teams, and a lot of the decisions are becoming data-driven, and focussed on ‘audience-in’ approach. Network18 Media and Investment Ltd CEO-Digital and president – corporate strategy, Dentsu Publicis Media Services CEO Tanmay Mohanty and Firework India CEO Sunil Nair were among the other key panelists.

    Mohanty highlighted how it has become imperative for publishers to share their data, so brands can plan their reach better. He also spoke about the price and efficiency one can then deliver to the client, by moving away from the walled gardens and creating a sustainable media ecosystem. 

    Firework’s Nair talked about the opportunity that LIVE commerce provides to ecommerce that is beginning to show promise in India. “Vertical video, swipeable video, shoppable video are far more engaging and we are seeing enough traction out there in terms of sales that’s happening,” he said.

    Another session on ‘Personalisation and Monetisation through technology’ witnessed insightful discussion among representatives from InMobi, MAAS, Simplilearn, PayNearby, KreditBee and ShipRocket on the new revenue opportunities. While personalisation is crucial to creating user-centric experiences, the challenge lies in monetising it effectively through technology by creating targeted experiences to the viewers. Indian Television Dot Com founder CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari set the ball rolling by asking his panellists to share one tech innovation that they found exciting in the recent past.

    KreditBee CMO Ishan Bose said the data-driven approach where they identify variables from the user’s different data sources and based on that allocate scores to the users has been a game-changer. “This has helped in amplifying the reach basis the personalisation of credit and improve the quality of lending,” he added. MAAS chief data and platforms officer Vipul Kedia discussed the omnipresence of data and how the ability to generalise data across various channels will be the driving force for advertisers going forward.

    Inmobi director Microsoft advertising business Rohit Dosi said, “The data is out there. But it is ultimately up to the brand or the user on how much deep down personalisation they want. Publishers are open to working with brands to help them figure out their data strategy, but it’s finally the decision of the brands and users on the level of data privacy they want.”

    PayNearby head-products Nilesh Halde talked about the marginalised set who are not highly prevalent on the digital platform- whose presence is limited to “ABC – Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket”. To target these sets of people who are rarely on social media platforms will be a challenge for brands. “Publishers need platforms to reach out to these people. Definitely an opportunity lies there. We also need to look at Bharat, rather than only India,” he said.

    “There needs to be a balance between privacy and personalisation,” the panelists agreed, highlighting that the key is to make the user believe his privacy is not being invaded. While Content will keep evolving, short-format video content will continue to hold forth in the coming years too, the panelists agreed.

    Another session on ‘Audience behaviour and publishers’ saw representatives from Kantar, OutBrain, Taboola, Toppr and ABP discussing the key trends that have dominated the industry over the past year based on the changing consumer behaviour. The panellists also discussed the new technologies that are bringing ad-tech platforms and digital publishers together to reach more audiences. 

    EMBED: https://indiantelevision.com/events/pubnation-summit-2021/

  • HC issues notice to Centre over media firms’ plea against IT rules

    New Delhi: The Madras high court has issued a notice to Centre over a plea filed by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) against the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.

    This petition challenged the constitutionality of the Rules and alleged that it violates the fundamental right of equality (Article 14), freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1)(a), and the right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business (Article 19 (1) (g)). The association sought a stay on Rules 12, 14, and 16 of the IT Rules 2021.

    Formed in 2018, DNPA is an organisation comprising of the digital arms of leading media companies of the country, including the ABP Network, Amar Ujala, Dainik Bhaskar Corp, Express Network, HT Digital Streams, IE Online Media Services, NDTV Convergence, Lokmat Media, Jagran Prakashan, TV Today Network, The Malayala Manorama, Times Internet Limited, and Ushodaya Enterprises. 

    According to DNPA, the online news portals of traditional media houses, which run newspapers and TV channels, do not come within the purview of IT Rules.  “While ‘newspaper’ is not governed by the IT Rules 2021, ‘publisher of news and current affairs content’ is governed by Part three of the IT Rules 2021. This implies that some of the members of DNPA association which are primarily newspaper publishers would not be governed by the IT Rules 2021 if they only published newspapers. But by making available, inter alia, the same content on a digital platform, they ought to be governed by the IT Rules 2021. Therefore, the IT Rules 2021 have created a distinction that is vague and arbitrary…” stated the plea, Live Law reported.

    The plea also contended that there are several regulations in place already for traditional and legacy media outlets in print and broadcasting, which have been operating before the advent of the internet and digital media. The petition filed by DNPA and journalist Mukund Padmanabhan was tagged along with the petition filed by Carnatic singer TM Krishna, which also claimed that the IT Rules 2021 were in violation of the Right to Privacy.  

    The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 that into effect on 26 May recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media. Under the rules, the digital publishers are required to take urgent steps for appointing a grievance officer, if not done, and place all relevant details in the public domain. “They also need to constitute self-regulatory bodies through mutual consultation so that the grievances are addressed at the level of publishers or the self-regulating bodies themselves,” according to the ministry.

  • Puneet Gupt on Times Internet’s performance post-Covid

    Puneet Gupt on Times Internet’s performance post-Covid

    KOLKATA: Given the sudden uncertainties, digital publishers were fretting about the downturn in business at the beginning of Covid2019 crisis. Anticipating a very troublesome period, the publishers prepared to counter the worst situation. Fortunately, the industry has witnessed a better-than-expected state of business post Covid, Times Internet Ltd (TIL) COO Puneet Gupt said.

    In a virtual fireside chat with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, Gupt spoke about the overall sentiment in the industry which is turning out to be brighter with each passing month. According to him, TIL, as well as other publications, are now gaining momentum across all metrics. While there was a huge slump in ad spend in the first couple of months when physical movements were curtailed and the market was down, there has been a gradual growth month-on-month basis since things have started opening up, especially in the last four-five months.

     “As I say, it is a culmination of sequential growth that we are seeing month-on-month in our businesses. Maybe from July onwards revenue has picked up. I would be slightly worried about Q4 but at least with Diwali and going up to December I see that there is possible traction to build,” Gupt said.

    Despite the pessimism around festive spend in the industry, TIL has witnessed good business during Diwali compared to the last year. Categories like ed-tech, OTT, gaming and digital-only products were the big spenders this festive season. These categories have picked up the overall ad spend, leading the way while other categories are following.

    Amid the Covid crisis, several brands have moved their budgets to digital. Gupt acknowledged that the re-allocation of funds has helped them. “I personally think it’s a short term move and will be more even for a slight shift on digital and not the 30-40 per cent shift that we are seeing right now. But it may stay back at 10 per cent higher shift and rest goes back to the mediums where it came from,” Gupt noted. He added that TIL has witnessed significant growth in native advertising and video segment but display advertising has stayed under pressure.

    “We are doubling down on what we are doing. As an organisation, we have always said that programmatic is good as it gets us revenue and gives transparency to the buyer, but a one-on-one relationship with the buyer is important. Hence, we have a large sales team when some of the publishers were scaling down their sales teams and doubling programmatic. We were saying that we welcome programmatic but we want to double down on our sales team, relationships, people-to-people connect,” Gupt elaborated on the measures that have helped TIL to stay on the growth track.

    In terms of user engagement, there has been a huge spike on MX Player. The over-the-top (OTT) platform has seen 5X growth on time spent post-Covid. But the audio segment has not been to catch up with the growth of the video segment. TIL’s news properties have seen 40-50 per cent growth both in terms of engagement and visitors.

    While TIL has built a strong business on the back of ad revenue over the years, it still has a long way to go on subscription side, with a base of two million subscribers. “I don't think that 2 million subscribers is a challenge. It is a big success. We started this journey a few years ago and it’s something that all of us are learning. We are experimenting, learning and building it out. I think the next level of growth is just ahead of us. We think that in four-five years of time, about three-five per cent of our users would be paying in some form or the other. We are building for the long haul and creating consumer products across the ecosystem,” Gupt commented. He hopes TIL to maintain an average revenue per user between Rs 500-1000 per annum for that large subscriber base.”