In Conversation with Sanjay Sindhwani
In our chat with Sanjay Sindhwani, CEO- The Indian Express (Digital), he talks about his celebrated journey, his new career move and the digital landscape in India.
1. First of all, very many congratulations for your new role as the CEO of Digital Business at the Indian Express. What made you make this move and how does it feel to be on the new chair?
Thank you. I was looking for new challenges at this stage of my career. The Indian Express brand has a strong legacy and credibility. It has grown in all aspects in the past couple of years. I think there is a lot more that can be done to take it to greater heights. With the scourge of fake news, I think a credible brand like Express has its role cut out for it. I definitely think good times are ahead and you will hear about of a lot of our new initiatives in the months to come. I am really excited about the future.
2. You have spent 20 years of your 25-year career in digital news. What is that one thing that you will inherent from your celebrated journey to Indian Express?
In digital, every day is a new beginning. You learn, unlearn and relearn to grow in this industry. You will see a lot of new products being launched, lots of experimentation happening as we try our hands at new products and services.
3. As per IRS 2019 Q1, English dailies saw an additional 0.3 crore readers since IRS 2017. With print industry being questioned each day, do you think it is indicative of print and digital media consumption growing hand-in-hand in the foreseeable future? What will be the foremost drivers?
India is a developing market. Literacy levels are going up. A young population with high aspirations will consume more of, both Print and Digital Media, in the foreseeable future. But digital growth will be much faster than print. The foremost reason for this is the increasing internet penetration rate in India. The ease of access. It will be interesting to see how marketers divide their dollars between the two media channels while trying to engage with these aspiring Bharat residents.
4. In the same survey, The Times of India retained its number one position among all English Daily Newspapers, while The Indian Express stood fifth. What will it take for you to reach the same stature in terms of readership figures?
We at Indian Express are not about Quantity. We are always about Quality. For us, every story and every reader is important. We always strive for unbiased and credible journalism. Having said that, we believe that on digital we have expanded our reach to become the No.2 English Newspaper media site and this reiterates the fact that I mentioned earlier, that we produce great and distinct content which has enabled us to expand our footprint in the digital world much faster, in-spite of greater competition.
5. With the online publishing industry built on the back of advertising, do you think it will sustain for long?
While Advertising continues to have a dominant share of the overall revenue pie of the digital publishing industry, the share will start coming down soon. New revenue lines will be added to the list. Even within advertising, there will be diversification of the revenue options from Display, Native, Videos, Keywords, CPD, CPL to many more. As the industry matures and experiments with opportunities, alternate revenue streams will come into play. Media organisations are experimenting with Subscriptions, Content Commerce, Content Syndication, Events, Training’s, Consumer Research and many more business ideas. Some of these are getting very good traction. I strongly believe that 4-5 years down the line, non-advertising revenues will account for 30% – 40% of the total revenues of most media companies, who will still be around.
