This year's World Newspaper Congress lineup

Christian Van Thillo, CEO of De Persgroep, will discuss what worked and what didn't after the merger of Aurex, De Morgen and Magnet Magazines into De Persgroep in November 2006.

"The main objective was not to improve the overall bottom line by cost-cutting through synergies, but to create a new, more flexible organisation that would be better suited to effectively develop our online strategy and that would be better adapted to serve our advertisers, who are asking for multimedia solutions," says Van Thillo.

Part of a larger transformation

The transformation of De Persgroep is part of a larger transformation of the newspaper industry, sparked by the opportunities to offer newspaper content across many media platforms. This transformation is the foundation of the 2008 Congress, which takes the theme, "Newspapers: A Multimedia, Growth Business."

The Congress, along with the World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo, is an annual, global meetings of the world's press. More than 1500 publishers, chief editors, CEOs, MDs and other senior newspaper executives and their guests are expected in Sweden for the events. Last year it was held in Cape Town, South Africa. Full details are available at www.wansweden2008.com

In addition to Van Thillo, confirmed speakers for the congress include:

• Joe Webb, deputy MD of the Irish Independent
  
• Tim Bowdler, CE of Johnston Press in the UK
  
• Giorgio Valerio, GM of RCS Quotidiani in Italy
  
• Tomas Brunegard, CEO of Sweden's Stampen Group
  
• Nelson Sirotsky, president and CEO of RBS Group in Brazil
  
• Francis Morel, director general, and Pierre Conte, deputy director general in charge of New Media, of Le Figaro in France
  
• Dominic Young, director of editorial services of News International in the UK
  
• I Venkat, director of Eenadu in India, and
  
• Tony Watson, editor-in-chief of The Press Association in the UK.

The congress will also include the annual World Press Trends update, which provides a statistical snapshot of circulation, readership, advertising and other newspaper trends; a session on the latest research about the media habits of younger readers; a primer on digital developments entitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Web 2.0 but Didn't Dare Ask"; and the 2008 Global Report on Innovations in Newspapers, presented by the Innovation International Media Consulting Group.

The congress will also provide a full programme of social events.

Business sessions

The congress business sessions will focus on the following themes:

• What are the best strategies for growing audience, in print and online?
  
• What are the best strategies for increasing both print and digital advertising – and what growth can be expected? What management, infrastructure and processes are necessary to sell advertising for a portfolio of products, as opposed to a single newspaper title?
  
• How can the new reach attained by newspapers through their combined print and digital operations be monetised? Many newspapers dominate their print and digital markets – how can they turn this into better profit?
  
• Newspapers are the Content Kings! How can the unique content gathered by newspapers, which have the strongest journalistic teams in any media, be exploited through the full range of new distribution channels? And, vitally, what can be sold and what has to be free?
  
• Can and should newspaper brands be integrated in the digital world or should we expect disaggregation?
  
• What changes are underway to better measure combined print and digital reach? What is audience aggregation and how does a newspaper build its product portfolio?
  
• What are some of the winning new products and acquisitions that successful newspapers have added in recent times?
  
• The search engines: friend or foe? Is the continued growth and diversification of the big search companies an opportunity for newspapers, through partnerships for example, or a long-term threat to their revenues?

Sponsors for the events now include Volvo, Holmen Paper, SAS, Bonnier, the Stampen Group and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

• The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom and the professional and business interests of newspapers world-wide. Representing 18 000 newspapers, its membership includes 77 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 11 regional and world-wide press groups.