Featuring insights from Adam Alex and Aaron Alex of Newstech
March 27th, 2025
Meet Adam Alex, Technical Director, and Aaron Alex, Managing Director at Newstech, as they share their perspectives on key publishing trends shaping India and the surrounding region, from the evolving print-to-digital landscape to the growing role of automation and AI in media.
1. Tell us a bit about Newstech and your connection to the publishing industry in India.
Newstech has been part of the fabric of India’s publishing industry for over 40 years. Founded by our father, Roy Alex, a true print pioneer, the company has always focused on empowering publishers through smart, forward-thinking automation technology. Today, we (Adam and Aaron) are proud to carry on that legacy.
After building our own careers abroad, Adam in engineering and capital equipment manufacturing, and Aaron in management consulting, we returned to India to lead Newstech into its next chapter. Together, we bring a mix of international experience and deep roots in the media industry. What drives us is a shared passion for innovation, service, and helping publishers thrive, whether they’re regional-language leaders or national dailies.
We’re backed by an incredible team of technologists and staff across India and beyond, all focused on delivering value through smart tech, global partnerships, and hands-on support.
2. How do you see the print-to-digital transformation unfolding in India and the surrounding region? What factors do you believe are driving or slowing this shift?
As with most technology-dependent industries, publishing too is transient in that the underlying technologies and consumption mediums are ever-evolving. Particularly in India (as opposed to the West), we are still seeing marginal growth in traditional print circulation, around ~2–6% CAGR, as per some reports. This is especially concentrated among regional language publishers, and one can reasonably assume that this is tied to the steady rise in literacy rates and low per-copy costs in a country where disposable income is growing. Even at the larger national English-language dailies, we aren't seeing drastic negative growth, and a post-COVID rebound is still observable. Our industry insider peers indicate that the traditional print medium is still expected to hold for another 15(ish) years until we see numbers similar to the West.
Digital media consumption, however, is growing in parallel and at a drastically higher rate. This, in part, is due to the stellar work by the Indian government to digitize the country completely, through several large-scale energy and telecom projects. Even remote villages are now abundant with cell phones, and the youth (and many seniors in metro areas too) are very much on FB, Instagram, etc., consuming news there.
The market is also flooded with affordable Indian- and Chinese-manufactured 5G cell phones capable of supporting modern internet speeds, fueling the growth in digital news consumption, further accelerated by some of the lowest per-GB internet costs globally.
3. With the growing push toward automation and technology in news media, what key trends are you observing?
If we look at the three most pressing issues discussed at the senior leadership level, we invariably hear:
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- How do we optimize production costs further?
- How do we monetize further and/or diversify?
- How do we create strong and fact-checked journalistic content that is scalable across mediums?
Automation is key to all three endeavors.
Cost Optimization
In this area we’re seeing a renewed post-COVID push to reduce labour dependency and costs through automation, particularly in the areas of press-to-loading-bay delivery using automated mailroom systems, and automated ink pumping to optimize input costs.
Monetization
On the monetization front, questions tend to focus on what the best two-pronged approach is with regard to print and digital products.
- Print: One trend we see gaining momentum is the widespread adoption of UV printing on the first ad page. We've implemented 16 such systems so far via our German partners IST Metz. This has enabled deeper monetization of ad space and is performing very successfully.
- Digital: Monetization with digital heavily depends on giants like Facebook and Google. It remains a relatively unprofitable medium by most accounts. However, we believe the rise of automated paywall technologies can help publishers reduce dependence on these platform giants and take back some of the control they have over monetizing their content independently and in a highly tailored fashion.
Content Creation
Internationally, we are hearing rumblings of leveraging LLMs to create independent fact checked journalistic content scalable across mediums, however much work remains to be done here.
4. How do you see innovative solutions like Sophi addressing the evolving challenges in media today, and what about them excites you as a partner in this space?
Sophi definitely hits on a big pain point, and in doing so affords publishers an incredible opportunity: to regain some control over the monetization of their content using a fully automated, highly individualistic, AI-based paywall administration. Further, the current data we have suggests remarkable ROIs, with revenue gains of up to 40% from the digital medium with minimal user interface using Sophi.
The most exciting thing is that we get to work with our esteemed clientele to address that age-old pain point of “how do we further monetize digital content” and take the first steps toward building digital into a strong revenue stream, together paving the way for wider-scale AI adoption across content generation and print production optimization in future years!
About Newstech
Founded in 1984 by technologist and print pioneer Roy Alex, Newstech is one of India’s largest private suppliers of production automation technology for the publishing industry. With seven metro offices, a 140+ reseller network, and a growing international footprint, Newstech supports publishers across four countries.
Backed by a team of 60, including 15 print technologists with deep on-the-ground expertise, Newstech delivers smart automation solutions across equipment, software, and consumables. Through trusted global partnerships, the company continues to drive innovation and add value for publishers navigating a rapidly evolving media landscape.
About Sophi
Sophi is Mather’s cutting-edge analytics, prediction, and automation platform. Originally developed at Canada's leading publisher, the Globe and Mail, and purpose-built for modern newsrooms, Sophi has emerged as a leader in print automation, site automation, and, most notably, dynamic AI-powered paywall engines.
How does Sophi’s Dynamic Paywall Engine power publisher growth?
- Leveraging the publisher’s unique audience data, Sophi’s real-time decision engine evaluates each reader’s propensity to subscribe, automatically determining the revenue-optimal action—whether to present a paywall or allow open access.
- With its advanced modeling, Sophi helps publishers grow subscriptions while mitigating risks to audience engagement. With integrated A/B testing options and detailed analytics reporting, publishers can easily measure performance and refine strategies to achieve their digital growth goals.
- And the best part? Sophi clients benefit from integrated strategic support from Mather, drawing on over 20 years of experience in advancing publishers’ subscription businesses.
