The First Middle East Publishing Conference

Knowledge Village, Dubai
Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 January 2005

300 participants from the region and beyond

WAN has expanded its conference reporting service to provide more complete
summaries of conference presentations as an exclusive service to its members
and to subscribers to the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project. You
will find the summaries of the Monday afternoon sessions of the Middle East
Publishing conference below.

For more information, contact WAN, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris,
Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail:
contact_us@wan.asso.fr

The Future of Advertising
Joseph Ghossoub, Incoming President, International Advertising Association,
Dubai

The room for growth in the Middle East advertising market is enormous, says
Mr Ghossoub. Advertising spending per capita is only one-sixth that of other
regions, and total advertising spend in the Middle East represents only one
percent of global expenditure.

"Per capita spending on advertising in larger in Cyprus, the smallest
country in the region, than in Saudi Arabia, the largest," he says.

But while overall advertising spend is forecast to grow rapidly, newspapers
and, to some extent, magazines, have a problem, Mr Ghossoub says.

Below-the-line advertising such as direct marketing, events marketing,
sponsorship and public relations will expand at the expense of media,
particularly print media, says Mr Ghossoub.

"I love print personally. I have lived with print throughout my private
life. Then last thing I want to see is print fading away. But print has a
problem," he says.

Print must adapt more quickly to changes in the media landscape, he says,
particularly to the fact that other media -- brodcast and internet -- get
news to consumers faster, and provide better effectiveness research.

How to go about this? "Keep in sight the basic techniques of good
management," he says. "We manage people, we manage money, we manage real
estate. The one thing we never do is manage the one that matters most:
manage change."

Mr Ghossoub says the industry must learn the recognise and react to changes.
For instance, he called for greater spending on research -- "I'm talking
about credible research that recognises lifestyle as well as consumption,"
he says.

"The future of advertising is very bright," he concluded. "It will belong
not to the biggest, not to the largest, but to the fastest -- the one that
is fastest to adapt to change."

"What Laws Do We Need?"
Sir Brian Neill, Arbitrator/Mediator, 20 Essex Street Chambers, UK

"The world needs strong and vigorous newspapers and magazines," says Sir
Brian.

At the same time, "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," said Sir Brian,
who provided a primer on press law.

He identified several areas where laws and codes might be needed:

- Laws can be made restricting press freedom in the interest of national
security, though "it is desirable that except in times of real emergency
they should be monitored and should have a sense of proportion."

- Prevention of crime. "With a responsible media it should be unnecessary to
provide specific restrictions."

- Protection of the system of justice to guarantee the right of an
individual to a fair trial.

- Protection of public morality and to protect religious and ethnic
sensibilities. "Codes of guidance are of great value but some countries
might want to consider regulations."

- Defamation or libel. "One of the most difficult problems is finding the
right balance between freedom of the press and the right of the individual
to his reputation. This is an area for far more international cooperation
than at present."

- Protection of intellectual property.

Sir Brian warns: "It is one thing to lay something down in a constitution.
It is another to see how it works in practice. In my view, the ability of
criticise those in authority is the most important component of freedom of
expression."

Get Rid of Information Ministries
Mohamad A. Al-Jassem, Editor-in-Chief, Al-Watan, Kuwait

Press laws should reflect the values of the societies which create them, but
that is not often the case in the Middle East.

"The regimes here are undemocratic regimes and the regulations reflect the
political ideology of the rulers and do not necessarily reflect the
society," says Mr Al-Jassem.

Press laws are often applied arbitrarily by such regimes, which want to
protect their ability to influence public opinion.

"Arab states need to liberate their media from the yoke of the state, which
means changing ideology," says Mr Al-Jassem, who recommended the following:

- Get rid of Information Ministries.

- Repeal prohibitive taxes of the publishing industry.

- Repeal rules requiring official authorisation to publish and that require
content to be submitted to authorities prior to publication.

- Decriminalise defamation and libel, replacing jail sentences with
reasonable fines.

- Repeal judicial authority to cancel publication.

Distribution Business is Booming
Tony Jashanmal, Director, Jashanmal and Sons Distribution, Bahrain

Mr Jashanmal is the third generation of his family to run his independent
distribution company, which was established in 1919. His business is in
rapid development.

"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," he says. "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."

Publishing in the Gulf is set for another boom, due to initiatives such as
Dubai's Media Free Zone, he said. "This will substantially increase the
number of publications and the independent distributors will have to get
more sophisticated," he said.

What will be required for efficient independent distribution? Effective
management and good supplier contacts, to keep an eye on market
developments; an adequate number of vehicles for pick-ups and deliveries;
and an efficient call centre to advise clients, monitor deliveries and tend
to complaints.

Don't Blame the Distributors!
Mohamad Al-Khudair, CEO, Saudi National Distribution, Saudi Arabia

Press and printing companies always blame distributors for not distributing
their publications widely enough. Mr Al-Khudair asks for some understanding.

"Things are not what they used to be. It isn't easy for distribution
companies. In the last decade, the number of schools and the number of
people who read increased a lot. There are a lot of new magazines and books,
and this has had an impact," he says.

These developments led Saudi Arabia to form a nation-wide distribution
company to blanket the country, says Mr Al-Khudair. This has decreased
costs, improved delivery times, and has helped promote the press in areas of
Saudi Arabia that were outside of previous distribution zones. There are now
more than 16,,000 outlets.

Mr Al-Khudair said the creation of the system has also allowed more research
on reading habits in the country, which saw a 20 percent rise in readership
between 2003 and 2004.

Know Your Audience
Guy Consterdine, Founder, Guy Consterdine Associates & FIPP Research
Consultant, United Kingdom

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.

Mr Consterdine's presentation covered the kind of research publishers must
undertake to really understand their audiences so they can explain its value
to advertisers. And he used examples of this research to show the
effectiveness of advertising in magazines.

"Know your audience -- it's key to winning ad revenue and profit," he says.
"It is characteristic of print that readers do buy products as a result of
the advertising."

To make a good argument to advertisers, Mr Consterdine said publishers
shouold be able to know and prove the following:

- how many readers:

- what they are like;

- how they use the publication;

- their close relationship with the publication:

- their involvement with the advertisements;

- the actions they take;

- how print ads sell products and generate high return on investment;

- how audience exposure to print ads enhances the advertising in other
media.

Better Media Research for Publishing Success
Jim Chisholm, Director, Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, World
Association of Newspapers

Readers typically read only 25 percent of their newspapers. Up to 25 percent
of the newspaper is read by virtually no one.

"Imagine if you could give them the 25 percent they read and cut out the 25
percent they don't. We'd all be rich. But there is a problem with that --
they all read a different 25 percent."

Only 25 percent of readers buy a car each year. Twenty-five percent buy a
house. And 25 percent change jobs -- not very high numbers for the three
cash cows of newspaper advertising.

"And 100 percent of advertisers know this," says Mr Chisholm.

Given this situation, publishers don't invest nearly enough in research to
help improve their product, nor do they do the right kind of research. Mr
Chisholm reviewed a dozen different ideas for simple, low-cost research. For
example:

- Reading and noting studies and inexpensive and effective ways to show
reading traffic on every page to help position the content to appeal to your
content audience and restructure the page flow to remove "ghettos".

- Questionnaires published in newspapers cost next to nothing and readers
love them. They provide rapid feedback, they can track everything or only
one aspect of the paper and they can provide profile detail for advertising
sales. But they should be used with caution: only happy readers complete
them, and it tells you nothing about non-readers.

- Send a letter to everyone who appears in a news story in your paper asking
them if the story was accurate. Not only does it tell you something about
your reporters, but it also sends a message that your paper cares deeply
about being accurate..

"We are massively under-exploiting research as a tool for building the
business," says. Mr Chisholm.

Questions for the Arab Press
Abd al-Wahhab Al-Fayez, Editor-in-Chief, Al-Iqtisadiyyah, Saudi Arabia

Mr Al-Fayez took over a sensationalist newspaper and turned it into a
quality paper while making a profit. So when it comes to questions about
responsibility and freedom, he has some standing.

And he raised a lot of questions in a short presentation on the subject --
questions related to the challenges that must be faced as the Arab press
grows in stature.

With the growth of the industry, exercising professional freedom will become
a challenge. What will be the response to protect newspaper ethics?

Government control over the industry has grown stronger as have economical
pressures. Are media leaders aware of the ethical questions raised by
working under such an umbrella?

Is the growth of advertising threatening the ethical position of media, and
are Arab media even aware of this threat?

"How to we understand our work? These are the challenges facing our
industry," he says.

Accepting Freedom and Responsibility
Michael Stent, Managing Editor, Gulf News, Dubai

Journalists don't want freedom just for freedom's sake, says Mr Stent.

"We want freedom in order to exercise our responsibilities, and our
principal responsibility is to tell the truth."

"Development, growth, progress, human happiness and fulfillment can only be
built on a platform of truth," he says.

That's the least a newspaper can do for its readers, he says. "The most
important person on the editorial floor is not the editor, not the owner,
not the advertiser, not the government. It's the reader," he says.

"At this juncture in the Middle East, I believe the door to freedom is
opening wider," he says. "With this comes greater responsibility, but it is
a burden journalists are eager to bear."