Media companies must change or perish, says Aroon Purie

Media companies must reinvent themselves to survive in a digital era where content is increasingly being consumed on mobile phones and tablets, Aroon Purie, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, said on Friday.

"Media companies need to constantly redefine themselves in the businesses they are in or else they will be dead. They first regarded themselves in the traditional way of producing a product on a certain frequency and  then with the  growth of the internet they became "content producers " which bascially meant  dumping stories on their website for free. But just being a content producer is not enough we are now I believe in the audience engagement business. That is we have to engage our brands with audiences across all platforms and also with off line activities."

Purie was speaking about the challenges of running a media conglomerate in the digital era. "The biggest challenge today is to move where the consumers are moving and they are now consuming content on mutliple devices in particular smart phones and tablets."

As the group increases its focus on disseminating content across digital platforms, Purie said that  now there is some way to objevtively evaluate  the editorial value of content by seeing how much of a journalist's work goes viral. He said the challenge lay in getting journalists to change their mindset. "The content that we offer is no longer gospel and the journalists have to realise that. They have to be aware that there are people out there in the social media  who may know more about the subject they are writing about and quite ready to trash their stories. This means much more robust journalism which journalist can defend in the digital space."

Though the group has been aggressive in digital media over the past few years, Purie said that they didn't bring the change as fast as they should have. The biggest mistake most media companies had made is that they spent  too much of their time in their old businesses and  not enough in paying attention to new trends, said Purie.

The group's next big move, according to Purie, would be to create content for mobile platforms. "We would look at creating content for smartphones which could later be developed for the web and print."