At the World News Media Congress (WAN-IFRA), four media CEOs — from Poland, Canada, India and South Africa — laid out their top strategic priorities for the next 24 months. From editorial expansion and platform play to public policy lobbying and smart monetisation, their responses differ — but their ambitions echo the same challenge: building long-term sustainability in a structurally broken market.
🇵🇱 Agora (Poland): Between legacy, platforms and bold digital bets
Bartosz Hojka, CEO of Agora, described a market that’s both modest and tough: Poland has 38 million people, but just €3 billion in total ad revenue, most of which is absorbed by global tech players. Local media remain largely stagnant.
Agora, born in 1989 with the post-communist daily Gazeta Wyborcza, is now a diversified group reaching:
- 300,000 digital subscribers
- 25 digital brands, 17M unique users/month
- 19 radio stations, 8M daily listeners
- 54 cinemas, 12M visitors/year
- 50,000 audio subscribers
- 18 million people reached daily
- 2,500 employees
- €350M in annual revenue, €35M operating profit
The group also operates 17,000 outdoor ad spaces — but refuses billboards and intrusive formats. Its digital audio segment grew by 70% last year, and its main growth drivers are now:
- Digital subscriptions
- Building direct relationships with readers but also listeners, through paid audio
- Digital out-of-home (DOOH)
“Our strategy is built on resilience, specialisation, and constant adaptation — but always rooted in our founding values.”
🇨🇦 The Globe and Mail (Canada): Independent ownership as a competitive edge
Andrew Saunders leads The Globe and Mail, a 180-year-old privately held national newspaper, read by 10 million Canadians per month. The group also represents CNN, The Guardian and Hearst in Canada, giving it a 20M/month commercial reach.
The context:
- 41M people, GDP $2.4T, 1.8% growth
- Highly concentrated market, strong public broadcaster (CBC)
- Platforms dominate digital spend
- Bill C-18: Google agreed to a $100M fund; Meta exited the market
- Canadian ad market shrank from $53.5B to $9B in 10 years
In this landscape, the Globe has made heavy investments:
- Dynamic paywall since 2012
- Sophi, its AI-powered editorial and commercial suite (launched 2015)
- Proprietary UX and direct-to-consumer infrastructure
“We believe in reader pay, but also in smart portfolio diversification — events, travel, premium education.”
Top priorities for the next two years:
- Strengthen direct reader revenue
- Monetise premium brand extensions (events, education, travel)
- Stay ahead on tech and data innovation
- Continue to make use of pricing power (The Globe & Mail increase price by 8-10% annually) by finding that value equation with high-value content and products
- Community building with two-way interactions
> On this topic: Audience, engagement and community at The Globe and Mail
🇮🇳 Malayala Manorama (India): From deep roots to digital reinvention
Mariam Mammen Mathew leads Malayala Manorama, India’s largest regional-language media brand, based in Kerala — the smallest state in India, yet with 35 million people. And:
- 87% print penetration (national avg: 35%)
- 98% smartphone penetration (vs. 65%)
- 1.7 million subscribers
- A diaspora of 5 million abroad
Manorama launched manoramaonline.com in 1997, even before Google. Still, the bulk of its revenue comes from print. Yet its digital transformation is in full swing:
Diversification strategy:
- 2 TV channels, 1 radio station, 1 OTT platform
- 40–50 niche publications across life stages
- Educational spin-offs (Manorama Yearbook, learning platforms)
- Transactional platforms:
- Informatica (matchmaking)
- HelloAddress (real estate)
- QuickerNow (500K SMEs, ticketing, bookings)
Monetisation is a mix of subscriptions, ads, microtransactions and events.
Editorially, the group focuses on “human touch journalism” and hyperlocal reach, with community education programs for digital literacy.
“We don’t compete on scale — we compete on trust, depth and local relevance.”
Top priorities for the next two years:
- Convert loyal print audiences to digital by building habits
- Continue to build and develop products that better serve their audience groups
- Monetise niche services with built-in trust
- Fight misinformation and platform disintermediation with proximity and credibility
🇿🇦 Daily Maverick (South Africa): Fixing the market, not just the product
Styli Charalambous, CEO and co-founder of Daily Maverick, makes the case for a blunt truth: market context matters more than internal innovation.
His research shows:
- A South African media outlet gets 8x less return for the same investment as a Nordic one
- Local players are structurally disadvantaged vs. global media brands
So instead of tweaking the product, he co-authored a national policy plan with 18 recommendations, now under review by the South African cabinet.
Among them:
- Tax deductions for readers subscribing to public-interest journalism
- Incentives for advertisers backing quality news
- Easier donations (without requiring charity status)
- Redistribution of asset recoveries from investigative journalism
Safeguards include:
- A legal definition of public-interest publisher
- Mandatory Press Council membership
- Indirect redistribution via citizens, companies or investors
“Journalism is a public good — but it’s not funded as one. We need a new policy architecture.”
> Learning from Membership models: Daily Maverick’s superpower database
🌍 Four CEOs, one shared imperative
Whether managing legacy empires or building policy from scratch, these four leaders are aligned on one point: journalism can’t be saved by editorial pride alone. It needs:
- Direct reader relationships
- Diversified revenue portfolios
- Technological and data fluency
And, when needed, a rebalancing of the rules themselves.
