HT Media flexes its digital muscles, sets up integrated newsroom in Delhi

HT Media has integrated its print and digital news operations across all of its. Hindustan Times, Hindustan, and Mint now share a newsroom in Delhi. HT Media is also converging on common digital asset management and content management systems that will enable the group take advantage of all of its diverse capabilities.

The move is aimed at deepening synergies between the group’s titles, while preserving their distinct identities. Each title has its own space, with shared facilities for meetings, training, and video production. An open-plan hub-and-spoke layout seats senior decision makers adjacent to each other in the centre of the room, making real-time web analytics visible to all editorial staff.

An integrated content management system, Methode, from Eidos Media, supports the converged digital and print workflow. This is backed by tools for analytics to provide deeper audience and production insights. Print ad-planning is being migrated on the same core platform for seamless edit-ad deployment that is directly integrated to SAP. Mobile apps are being delivered through a new in-house capability called ‘App Foundry’ that is being further augmented with video capabilities.

The new SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) based middleware seamlessly integrates edit, revenue, ad-planning and production systems, laying foundation of technology and practices that enables quick rollout of new services and support HT’s journey into the changing world of mobile, social, cloud and big data.

The integrated newsroom comes with built-in smart tech for users. Smart video panels provide a remote-less environment for switching between broadcast and personalised mobile feeds. A smart zone based town-hall capability allows localised audio collaboration with built-in bridging across locations. Pervasive video conferencing, including retractable VC pods at hub tables, allows both hardware and software based enterprise grade VCs across locations and devices, including smartphones.

The organisation’s technology infrastructure has been transformed even outside the newsroom. A new private cloud housed in a tier-3 data centre provides the compute platform for authoring while an elastic public cloud with deep content delivery networks provides the audience delivery engine for HT Media’s digital products.

Editorial processes have been overhauled to emphasise engagement with diverse audiences throughout the day. News planning and delivery now starts at 6.30 am, with the first news conference attended by senior editors now taking place at 9.30 am, emphasising digital goals for the day. Analytics are discussed in all edit meetings and shared with all staff to enable them to take responsibility for their own journalism on all platforms.

The editorial organisation structure has been overhauled to account for the demands of the digital day, to create clear accountability, and break silos. In the coming months, section heads will take full responsibility for entire journalism value-chain in both digital and print.