Print is Old But Not Obsolete, Shows Publish Asia 2017

SINGAPORE, April 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Publish Asia, the undisputed annual meeting place of the Asian news publishing industry has chosen the tagline "Strengthening Print in the Digital Era" as its main theme for this year's event. Its already strong conference programme - featuring over 30 speakers, 11 conference sessions and 4 workshops or masterclasses - has recently been consolidated with notable additions to both its print and digital components.

Despite having been written off countless times in the past, the printed newspaper stubbornly refuses to die: "Print is old, but not obsolete" says WAN-IFRA's Manfred Werfel who will present findings from a recently published study on the Print-Online Performance Gap. An agile, multi-platform strategy is therefore the only way forward to satisfy the audience ever-shifting consumption habits... 

On the Print side, Publish Asia 2017's session dedicated to "New print products and production strategies" will feature a case study from the Rheinische Post, a German daily which successfully converted its printing centre into a profitable commercial printing company. Fairfax Media, in Australia, operated a similar conversation in the frame of a large scale restructuration of its print operations across the country.

A new breakout session titled "Innovations in Print" will also showcase a case study from Star Media Group which has been able to protect its revenue from print advertising in challenging times more efficiently than most its competitors thanks to focus on in-house innovations in print.

On the Digital side, Publish Asia 2017's sessions dedicated to "Next Level Journalism" (with speakers from The Guardian, The New York Times, Google Cloud or Facebook) and "Making Sense with Data" (with speakers from NRC Media, Fairfax and SPH) have just been completed by a joint closing keynote presentation by Sirgoo Lee, the former CEO of Korea's instant messaging app KakaoTalk and Changhee Park, Chief Operating Officer of South Korea's leading multimedia publisher, JoongAng Ilbo, on the challenges of the digital transformation for legacy publishers. 

Malaysian PM to speak at Gala Dinner

Publish Asia 2017 will also host the prestigious Asian Media Awards ceremony, which will honour on April 19 the best publications in Asia Pacific in the field of Print, Design, Editorial Content, Visual Journalism, Photojournalism, Marketing and Community Service. H.E. Dato Sri Najib Razak, The Prime Minister of Malaysia, will speak at the gala dinner opening. 

Join the conversation: register now for Publish Asia and get access to a wealth of ideas, best practices and contacts that will inspire you to transform your content, newsroom organisation, printing strategies and monetisation models in a way you may have not imagined before.

Check the full program and register here

To register and for more information, please contact Wilson Leong at wilson.leong@wan-ifra.org or + 65 65 62 84 40 or check the event's website at https://events.wan-ifra.org/events/publish-asia-2017

WAN-IFRA is the global organisation of the world's newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries. Its core mission is to defend and promote press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity and the development of prosperous media businesses.