HT Media To Integrate Online And Print Ops
Over the past few months, we’ve done a couple of posts about old media adjusting to new media and vice-versa, and several heated discussions (some which we’ve had to close) have evolved around them in the comments. The Editor’s Weblog has a rather interesting post, based on an interview with Pankaj Paul, Managing Editor of HT Media.
At HT, the online and print teams were physically and organizationally separate, and HT is trying to integrate them: the company will have online and mobile specialists, but no separate online team. Content will be sent to a central hub by journalists, and the editor will select appropriate content for each platform. The focus will be increasing multimedia content on the digital platform, and journalists will be encouraged to file stories using multimedia devices. Hindustan Times sells 1.4 million print copies a day, while it’s website (reportedly) gets 500,000 page views per day; in their Delhi office, there are 215 people, of which 45 work in the online space. Hence, it’ll be quite a task to get the print guys to take online seriously.
I'd be really surprised if he manages to pull it off, not in the least because HT as an organization is one of the least change-friendly places in India media. But they key difference is that this time it is being driven from the top. On the downside though is the fact that there is no rulebook regarding cross-media integration.
Getting different teams to sit shoulder-to-shoulder is a fine idea, but in practice it works out differently as it will be a while before the media workforce here or anywhere gets used to the idea of the medium being just a conduit and content being treated as a re-purposed commodity that will be delivered through it.
To HT Media: Good luck–it's not going to be easy.
Keeping both online and print team different should have been the idle option. Because online space require tasks which are very much different from the print ones.