Speaking at the Middle East Publishing conference held at the Knowledge Village, Balding said: “As long as you are held back by controls and taboos of multiple kinds you will never realise your full potential, nor will you play the vital, wider role destined to the Press in driving economic, political, social and cultural development.”

Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive, India Today Group, Delhi, said: “If you produce valuable editorial, the rest will balance — readership, advertising, income. Invest in the best people. Know who your target audience is and cater to it. Decide on your business model and stick to it. Like in life, I think fidelity in publishing is good for you.”

Hanzade Dogan, CEO, Milliyet Group, Turkey, said: “When an opposition political party in Turkey was choosing new leaders, it did not open the vote to the public. But the Milliyet newspaper did: it provided readers with ballots and encouraged them to indicate their choices, even if their votes didn’t ‘count’ in the party election. And the public responded: more than 100,000 ballots were returned.”

Arab media is facing a crisis, which threatens its very existence, Talal Salman, Editor-in-Chief, Al Safir, Lebanon, said. “The most important and most serious crisis arises from the emptiness of the political role in the Arab world which deprives the Arabic Press of its rightful place as a source of Arab news."

He argued that the main source of news in the Arab world comes from elsewhere — mostly from America. “The Arab Press is left with nothing except criticising or agreeing to it,” he explained.

All media including music, television, radio, movies, telephony, guides and other information, are going digital, Jeff Bruce, Senior Vice-President, Zinio Systems Inc., USA, said.

In a brief presentation before a lengthy question-and-answer session, Peter Cooper, Financial Editor-in-Chief, AME Info, Dubai, encouraged publishers to take a second look at electronic publishing.

“I would urge you to look again at web sites and the digital magazine market, but this time you want people to pay for it,” he said.

The room for growth in the Middle East advertising market is enormous, Joseph Ghossoub, Incoming President, International Advertising Association, Dubai, said

“Advertising spending per capita is only one-sixth that of other regions, and total advertising spend in the Middle East represents only one per cent of global expenditure. Per capita spending on advertising is larger in Cyprus, the smallest country in the region, than in Saudi Arabia, the largest. But while overall advertising spend is forecast to grow rapidly, newspapers and, to some extent, magazines, have a problem. Print must adapt more quickly to changes in the media landscape,” he pointed out.

“It is in the interest of society that the power of the Press is exercised responsibly, so one looks for a framework of law, an infrastructure, in which the Press can operate. But it must be constructed with great care so the risk of censorship can be avoided,” Sir Brian Neill, Arbitrator/Mediator, 20 Essex Street Chambers, UK, said.

Press laws should reflect the values of the societies which create them, but that is not often the case in the Middle East, Mohamad A. Al Jassem, Editor-in-Chief, Al Watan, Kuwait, pointed out.

Tony Jashanmal, Director, Jashanmal and Sons Distribution, Bahrain, said: “Publishing in the Arabian Gulf has had a very fast development in the past 50 years. It would have taken 400 to 600 years in Europe and most other societies. Fifty years ago, there were no local publications, only foreign ones, sold through a single retail outlet. As towns grew, the retail outlets grew, and the first retailers became the distributors.”

Press and printing companies always blame distributors for not distributing their publications widely enough, Mohamad Al Khudair, CEO, Saudi National Distribution, Saudi Arabia, said.

Readers typically read only 25 per cent of their newspapers. Up to 25 per cent of the newspaper is read by virtually no one, Jim Chisholm, Director, Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, World Association of Newspapers, explained.

He said: “Imagine if you could give them the 25 per cent they read and cut out the 25 per cent they don’t. We’d all be rich. But there is a problem with that; they all read a different 25 per cent.”

Guy Consterdine, Founder, Guy Consterdine Associates and FIPP Research Consultant, United Kingdom, said: “Know your audience. It seems like such a simple idea. But knowing the audience in order to attract advertising takes a lot of in-depth research into their numbers, their habits and much more.”

Gavin O’Reilly, COO, Independent News and Media plc and First Vice-President World Association of Newspapers, said: “Consumers are overwhelmed with more than 3,000 marketing messages every day — everywhere they look, and much of it unwanted.”

“Remember that the consumer is being bombarded and increasingly finds advertising intrusive and annoying. This is particularly relevant to the broadcast media. Remember that an advertiser’s agenda is very, very simple: he wants rock-steady reach, reliable demographics, and does not want to pay a premium for a dwindling, haphazard audience,” he pointed out.

John Alexander, CEO, PBL Media, Sydney, said: “It helps that the Australian magazine market is booming. It helps too that although newspaper circulation is in decline, newspaper companies are more profitable today than they were at the peak of their circulation in the 1970s.”

Mike Gillam, Head of Media, Unilever NAMET, Dubai, said: “The advertisers aren’t going to stand for unaudited circulation anymore. Unilever banded together six months ago with the biggest advertisers in the region to form the Gulf Cooperation Council Advertising Association, which has placed measurement and accountability high on their agenda.”

Audit data is the leading currency for selling print advertising, Glenn Hansen, President and CEO, BPA Worldwide, USA, said. He made a case that companies which provide independent circulation audits can have higher revenues than those that don’t.“It leads to higher advertising rates compared with the competition. It gives a competitive edge over other media choices. It helps the sales team to be more effective,” he said.