In this episode of PressPectives, Siddharth Venkataraman, Head of Reader Revenue and Partnerships at Indian Express, discusses the challenges and opportunities in India’s publishing landscape. He highlights the complexities of reaching India’s diverse audience, where technological disparities and digital growth shape user experiences.
Siddharth emphasizes the commitment Indian Express has to credible, unbiased journalism in an era of misinformation, balancing editorial integrity with revenue goals. The publication prioritizes quality reporting over sponsored content, which helps build trust among readers, especially younger audiences who seek reliable news amidst the rise of fake news on social media platforms.
Siddharth also shares how the Indian Express addresses challenges like churn, with retention strategies such as proactive engagement, welcome emails, and third-party brand partnerships, offering value beyond content. Adapting to India’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the Indian Express leverages its legacy of credibility while embracing new technologies, such as UPI, to maintain growth and foster long-term subscriber loyalty.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Transcript
Siddharth Venkataraman
[0:00] For us, revenue is secondary. And the most important thing is that the content that goes out to the people should have some strength, should have some base to it.
Ruairí Doyle
[0:27] Hi everyone, and welcome to a new episode of the PressPectives Podcast. I am your host, Ruairí Doyle, and I am here to dive into the latest trends and ideas in technology and publishing together with incredible guests. Whether you're an industry pro, a curious learner, or just looking for some inspiration, you are in the right place. In this episode of PressPectives, we are speaking with Siddharth Venkataraman of the Indian Express, one of the top English-language daily newspapers in India, where he is head of reader revenue and partnerships.
The Indian Express is part of the Indian Express Group, which also publishes the Financial Express, along with a number of other regional publications, collectively reaching millions of readers every month. With a population of over 1.4 billion, the Indian market represents a fascinating publishing landscape. Given this immense scale, Indian publishers are tackling a range of challenges and opportunities, including the country's evolving technological landscape, digital payments, and its diverse socio-economic population. These are all topics that we will dive into today. Siddharth, welcome to PressPectives. It is great to have you here. Whereabouts are you joining us from?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[1:37] Thank you for having me today. It's a pleasure as well. I am joining you from Noida, which is part of Delhi in India.
Ruairí Doyle
[1:49] I think we can hear some of the bustling traffic outside in Noida. Is it a suburb or is it part of the main city of Delhi?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[1:59] It is a suburb, but Delhi is divided into NCR, which is called the National Capital Region, which includes Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad. These all come under one city, that's Delhi. It's night here, but people are still out hustling and bustling.
Ruairí Doyle
[2:26] Hustling and bustling, love it. Your career has taken you from traditional journalism to tech companies in marketing and operations roles, and now, of course, with the Indian Express. Can you walk us through this journey and how it's shaped your perspective on the publishing industry?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[2:43] I think I started my career with traditional journalism and media organizations like Times of India, NDTV. Then I got this opportunity of working with a Chinese firm in Beijing and then moved to the U.S. I was working for this company called Cheetah Mobile. I was always associated with news. I always had a passion for news when I started my career. Then I moved to the U.S., which gave me a different market analysis and understanding of how news is consumed in different countries and different parts of the world.
Ruairí Doyle
[3:29] Speaking of media, I briefly introduced the Indian Express Group, but I'd love for you to share for our listeners a bit more about the story behind the Indian Express Group.
Siddharth Venkataraman
[3:36] The Indian Express Group is almost a 100-year-old media organization in India. It was formed by Sri Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Express Group. The Express Group over the years has always been known for its credibility and people trust this media organization. Media in our democracy, especially in India, which has over 1.4 billion people, as you said in the beginning of the conversation, is one of the pillars of democracy. We have to ensure that people don't lose trust, people don't lose a source which is credible. There's a lot of trust in people that they see in the Express Group. We're very happy to be a part of this organization.
Ruairí Doyle
[4:34 ] In the intro, I mentioned how India's publishing landscape is as diverse as it is vast. Can you paint a picture for our global listeners? What are the most topical challenges and opportunities that you're facing in the Indian market today in terms of digital news consumption, monetization? Is it that move towards younger audiences or what other topical challenges is the Indian Express and Indian publishers facing today?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[5:10] I'll speak about the Express Group. The biggest challenge that we face today is fake news and the kind of social media platforms that are available. I'm not going to name any of them, but it's very easy for the youth. The internet penetration in India is almost 80% to 90%. People after the advent of companies like Jio and Airtel and all the network service providers who are providing internet at dirt cheap prices and the 5G-enabled handsets that are coming in at a very cheap cost. It's very easy for anyone to be on the internet and consume news from, say, Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram or any of the social media platforms that are available. And so what this does is that it kind of creates a perception in the minds of the youth or anyone who's consuming that news, and it kind of spreads like a wildfire.
I myself have almost, say, hundreds of groups on my WhatsApp, and it's very easy for me to forward one news and send it across to, you know, randomly almost to 1,000 people at any given point of time. So if I can do it, I'm sure there are a lot of people who it's very easy for them to spread this news. So in terms of that landscape, the major challenge that we face is to ensure that we maintain that credible news organization tag that we've been carrying for almost 100 years.
And, you know, we have a loyal set of users who trust us in terms of the news that we publish. And also, when I say we have been now trying to be more youth-centric to ensure that the youth come to us and not to anyone else, it takes time for anyone to build that trust. It's not easy for any news organization to, you know, come in the market and say, hey, we are now more youth-centric, you can trust us.
Ruairí Doyle
[7:32] Yeah, and so you should be. I mean, the Express Group has a legacy, like you mentioned, back to the 1930s. You've won numerous domestic and international awards for public interest journalism. But on that topic of relationship building in the age of hundreds of WhatsApp groups, how do you quantify or communicate the value of in-depth, investigative, credible, the word that you've been using about the Express Group? How do you communicate that to new would-be subscribers? How do you communicate that to the types of audiences who are receiving content and shares and forwards on channels like WhatsApp? How do you convince them that trustworthy content is something worth paying for?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[8:24] So in terms of communication with the users or subscribers to convince them that, okay, this content is worth subscribing is just based on the quality of content and investigation that we do. So if you've seen in the past, we've kind of given a lot of investigative journalism content that has come up. A lot of content that would not have come out from any media organization that has come up through the Express Group. And we're enemies with a lot of people in the government. We're enemies with a lot of people in the opposition, too. But we follow a very mid-path.
We don't side with any government or the opposition, per se, in terms of our editorial guidelines that we just report what it is. So that speaks for itself. And also, in between that as well, while we take that mid-path, we've also seen that a lot of the other media organizations who are our competitors focus more on click-baity content, ensuring that if we send out something to the users, they come on to the website and want to know what's in that story.
But if you see our headlines or the news that we send out to our users, so we follow a system where we send out newsletters, we send out push messages on the app, and all these are not click-bait. We don't kind of create any hype about any story. It's very clear that if XYZ person has met this XYZ person, say for example, Narendra Modi has met Chinese President Xi Jinping, it's set out clearly. And that kind of trust is built over the years, as I said. And we don't do something extravagant to get people to trust us. The content that we provide, the kind of journalism that we do, is traditional, original media journalism, which especially I have learned during my college days, when I did my master's.
So that's something which I'm very proud of. And at the same time, the company also follows those editorial guidelines very seriously. And if you come on to the website, if you come on to theindianexpress.com, you might not see a lot of PR articles, or you might not see a lot of articles related to sponsoring a lot of content, per se, because a lot of editorials are seen nowadays in multiple media organizations.
Ruairí Doyle
[11:31] And in your role as Head of Reader Revenue and Partnerships, how do you balance this line, I guess, between the credibility and the trust and the journalistic integrity with revenue goals? The role is to grow readership, to grow revenue. There's different tools in the toolbox, including tactics like sponsored content. How do you balance between the two?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[11:54] Oh, Ru, ask me more about it. It's very difficult for me to please my bosses as well as the editorial team. So I know where I will not get leverage, is where I can't go to my editorial team and say that I need this, and I'm getting new revenue for this. For us, revenue is secondary. And the most important thing is that the content that goes out to the people should have some strength, should have some base to it. And we thrive on that. And we're very happy that even though we're not in the top charts in terms of making money, but not at the same time is that we're not doing well. At the same time, we kind of maintain that balance. And that I've kind of imbibed on after coming on to this organization.
And I'm enjoying it. And it's good to have that kind of unpleasant conversations in office sometimes. But you learn a lot. You kind of understand where to draw a line that, okay, I can't cross this line with my clients per se when I go and speak to my clients. But at the same time, I know that I can't fight or probably come to my editorial and say that. And there have been a lot of instances like this. That's where I've kind of argued with my bosses that, okay, I need this kind of articles to be published. But then over a period of time, a person learns in the organization how things work and what is more important for us. And as I said, journalism, news, content, and the editorial guidelines are first, then followed by the revenue.
Ruairí Doyle
[13:38] You mentioned earlier the Internet penetration rate in India today was in the high 80s or early 90s. And if I understand it correctly, many users are still on 3G infrastructure in India. Of course, 3G is a technology originally debuted in, I think, 2001. 5G has been rolling out in different parts of the world, including India, I'm sure, from 2018. And you at the Indian Express Group, you reach millions of readers every month. Can you explain why are so much of the population still on 3G? And what sort of challenges does that technological landscape bring to your day-to-day and the product development, the content delivery strategies for the business?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[14:37] It kind of increases our cost, to be honest, because we kind of have to build products that are 2G, 3G. There are a lot of people who still use 2G in India, and that's pretty shocking for me too, which I got to know, especially the web pages that we make have to be very light, that it doesn't take much time for a 2G user to load. And the testing infrastructure that's required to test these products itself is challenging for us sitting in Delhi office, where we have access to 5G. But, say, if you go to a very remote town, say, in a state like Rajasthan or, say, Bihar, where we still don't have the infrastructure ready, and it kind of increases our challenges internally to ensure that we have the product which is friendly to 2G. I mean, you're saying 3G, but I'm still going down to 2G because I've seen a lot of users who are still on 2G. So, you know, and it's sad that we're being the world's most populous country now.
And we do have internet penetration, as I said, but it's not that everyone has the access to 5G or 4G, for that matter. And, yes, it increases costs for us. It increases a lot of efforts for the product team to come up with lighter pages where I can't load ads. I can't load a lot of things where my revenue gets a hit. And also balancing it out in some way that, you know, the users, like our subscription has e-paper that comes on the email every day. And the email delivery of the e-paper in a PDF format sometimes doesn't load on a 2G handset or probably a 3G handset.
So, you know, we want to ensure like we make that PDF so light that, you know, and the quality drops down when I kind of reduce or compress that file. Now, these are very technical issues that probably publishers like us face. And we're still, you know, kind of dealing with it every day. And to be honest, we haven't seen much complaints. I'll not say no complaints, but there are a few complaints. And every organization faces that with people when you have people like the kind of people that we have in India. So and it's freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Anybody can say anything to anyone. So so so, you know, dealing with that. Yes, it infrastructure is improving. It's not that it's that bad. Probably 10 years back or five years back, it was even worse.
But now things have kind of moving in the right place at the right direction. But but but yeah, I mean, you were right. So these are some of the challenges that we face. And the biggest challenge is how do I ensure that whoever is a subscriber gets the best of what we have to offer? You know, that that's the kind of discussions we have with our product team. And even today in the morning where we had this discussion with the product team and how to there was a page about the US elections and how to make it more lighter. The page wasn't loading on a 2G set. And the QA team faces a challenge in terms of how do we get the 2G handset to test. So so yeah, I mean, these are our daily challenges and we're kind of battling it out every day. And and there are teams who discuss internally. And but but yes, at the end of the day, we do come up with solutions and we're happy about it.
Ruairí Doyle
[18:45] Fascinating. And if I understand it correctly, you also have a unique one payment system in India, UPI. Could you explain for for our listeners what is UPI and has that had an impact just like, you know, trying to service legacy technology? Has that had an impact in the type of subscriptions that you offer today?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[19:00] Oh, yes. So UPI is Unified Payment Interface. It is it is started by the government of India, which kind of enables one click payments to to the users. UPI has kind of helped us in recurring payments a lot. And with the advent of digital payment ecosystem in India, everything has turned digital. You know, it's very easy for anyone to not carry the wallet, which we used to carry, which used to be so big and bulky that used to carry every day. Now people don't carry wallets. It's just everything on phone. And it's very easy for anyone to make payments by just scanning a QR code. And it is it is a very, very good initiative by the government. But there are still challenges, as I said, there are technological challenges, infrastructural issues that we face every day. Sometimes the payment doesn't get through because of network issues.
Sometimes there are bank errors. Sometimes, you know, the users are still trying to learn recurring, you know, recurring payments are still people don't know how to give a consent. Like, for example, in our subscriptions, primarily we we have an annual back for, say, 1299 rupees and which which which which a person has to. You know, when he pays through UPI, there is an option of getting an auto pay registered. And so every year on that particular day, the money gets debited from his account. So so recurring has been or probably the auto pay option from UPI has been a big success for a lot of subscriptions in India, because like like we use Netflix, we use Amazon. We use a lot of these OTT platforms which are on monthly, monthly recurring plans. So, you know, people are now hassle free that everything gets debited on its own. But there are a lot of people who still don't know about it.
And then we are in that process, that transitioning phase from zero to one, you know, where a lot of people are still learning how to use the interface. And and there are still some technical issues in that which are being addressed. It's not that it's not being addressed, but obviously things take time to educate such a huge population, especially when you face infrastructural issues like 2G, 3G, 4G, forget 5G mean, I have a 5G phone, but even in Delhi, there are certain parts where we don't have 5G. So so so, you know, I think in the next four or five years, you'll see a very improved infrastructure. You'll see a lot of developments in terms of infrastructure in India. Technologically, we'll be more advanced. Payments are right now going through at a very, very swift pace. Earlier for us to make a transfer from one person to another, if you have to make a transfer, it used to take four to five hours for a transaction to take place.
Now it just happens in a second. So and it's expanding now. We have been kind of tied up with multiple countries across the world where, you know, UPI is valid. I mean, I think it's it's valid in Dubai, it's valid in Singapore and in Bhutan and Nepal. So, you know, I can use UPI to make payments in these countries as well.
Ruairí Doyle
[22:42] So with that success and positive impact on recurring revenue and subscriptions comes challenges. Churn is a universal challenge for the publishing industry and all subscription products globally. Can you share any retention strategies that you've implemented at the Indian Express? How do you guys create sticky experiences? How do you keep your users engaged every day and keep your churn at a sustainable level?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[23:15] Yes, that's a very big challenge, to be honest, because, you know, we have a retention team as well in the subscription team. Which, you know, which where we have calling teams who call up users, remind them of their subscription, ensuring that they come on to the platform again and kind of participate or consume content. And we have engagement journeys that we have created internally where, you know, on say the one the first day of his onboarding, we send the user, you know, a welcome email. And and then post that we keep on sending him a lot of articles, you know, some contests. We partnered with a lot of third party brands where we give their vouchers to the users. So, you know, this is kind of helping the user that he's getting some value from not just the subscription, but there are more other things that he gets along with this. So you must understand that India is a very sensitive market, you know, for for users. If they're paying even a cent, they just want to ensure that they take hundred dollars out of it.
You know, so the expectations are huge. And and to to ensure that we deliver not just content, you know, passes for our events that we do. We also give third party offers where that can help them use in their daily lives. You know, like just to give you an example, we have a shopping platform called Mintra. Mintra is our partner. We give we give them 500 rupees off, which is which is say around around around seven, eight dollars of value. And and even if they purchase a thousand rupees, which is say around 16 dollars, they get a eight dollar discount. So so, you know, it's a very discount centric market. So so there's something the user needs, something more. And and churn is, as you said, is a global issue. And and we just kind of ensure that the user doesn't leave us. So, yeah, I mean, we kind of come up with these new ideas.
Like we say that, OK, take one year subscription, get a one month additional subscription free. So, you know, these are some things which which which has helped us and our retention has been good. You know, we have very good, loyal set of users who have always been a part of our for content consumption.
Ruairí Doyle
[25:56] You mentioned how every cent matters for for subscribers in India in terms of paying for content and the value that's received back for that. How do you engage with those readers and those subscribers, you know, either locally or abroad to understand, you know, their feedback on the product, on the content and transform that into revenue generating strategies or product improvement strategies or content research strategies to improve retention or new subscriber acquisition?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[26:35] In a subscription business, no users are the king. And and for us, we I think this has been a practice that's been followed for almost three to four years that I've heard about in the past because I've just joined almost two years back. But before that as well, there have been frequent surveys that have been conducted where we take the user feedback very seriously. So for us, if a user is saying that, you know, the payments are not working, I'm just giving you an example. We will ensure that we check all the parameters that we have, that the payments are working. Even though it might be a bank issue, but but we will still ensure that the product team goes through the floor again. And that's one way where we kind of do a lot of user feedback, user surveys that goes on to the website, that goes on emails to the users, because the maximum reach that we have is through emails. So we send out daily emailers to these users.
Along with that, we do we conduct a lot of these contests or quizzes that we do on the website. We kind of reward these users with, you know, again, partner brands like Boat, like we have multiple other partner brands that we are partnered with. And we give their vouchers to these users. And ensuring that the user comes back to the website every day, you know, spends at least five to 10 minutes in reading content, even though he's just surfing. But we just want to create this habit and the habit formation for an Indian user is very difficult because he can move to any source he wants in just a fraction of a second. So so again, that loyal set of users to build them takes time. And for that, we have set journeys in our in place where where we kind of communicate with the users every day. We have WhatsApp groups with certain set of users. We have a calling team which calls the users frequently to ask them for feedback if they're facing any issues, etc. And there are some some users who I personally call up and ask them that. OK, are you guys feeling OK if there's anything that we can do? And they, of course, give their feedback. And and these are just random people.
You know, it's not that these are planned activities. You know, I just see the list of users that I have. And one day I just pick up the phone and talk to them. And that kind of helps me connect to these users to understand what they're facing and how we can improve the product. Then I circle back to my product team saying that, OK, I think we might need X, Y, Z things on this on this product and how we can improve.
Ruairí Doyle
[29:24] You mentioned the the future is subscriptions. Of course, print is a major part of the news industry. I'm curious how big, how important, how much growth does the Indian Express Group see across print today? How big, how important, how much gross does the Indian Express Group see across print today and what is the health of the print component of the publishing industry in India today?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[29:54] See, print has always been, will always be the priority, irrespective of whatever time. So print has been there since 1932. That is a habit which our traditional news readers read every day. Even though if you go out in India, if you come to India, you'll see people carrying newspapers, even though they don't read them, but they'll still carry a newspaper. So that physical touch of a news is different from what you read on phones or on the website. And at India Express, print has always been our strength. Our editorials, our opinion articles, our explained stories that go on print are read by millions of users every month. And that is something which has been, we're very proud of that. So there are certain things that are very core to the legacy that we carry. And print is such, if I say...
If I may, in fact, I can tell you that when I was a kid, when I was doing journalism, when I was studying journalism, Indian Express and The Hindu are the two newspapers that I used to read every day because I was mad about newspapers, that physical touch and to be candid, I think the smell of that newspaper that you get in the morning was something that you could die for. But then, of course, with time, people change. I stopped consuming newspapers every day. But I do read newspapers in office because I get them there. in India, we have this UPSC examination, which is the Union Public Service Commission, where they recruit the bureaucrats in the Indian government. So they read newspapers. So that's the source for current affairs and news. And that's the toughest examinations. ever conducted in India. So to crack that, people read the newspapers day in and day out, to read every word of what is written. So that practice will never go. You know, in India specifically, no matter how many digital platforms come in, no matter AI comes in, I'm of the opinion, I may be wrong. Maybe 10 years later when we again chat, probably you would just come up to me and say, you said this. But I think 10 years down the line, I still don't see newspaper getting obsolete. Coming back to your question, think print is doing well and digital is not coming in between for sure.
Ruairí Doyle
[32:42] Let's talk a little bit about the Indian diaspora. It is quite something, I think, in the region of 35, 40 million people around the world in the Indian diaspora, which is around the size of the population of Canada, where I'm calling you from. How big an audience does this represent for the Indian Express Group, and how do you build a relationship with them?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[33:13] See, the Indian diaspora that you spoke about are very important because they come with a different set of opinion of India from outside. They know what the world is thinking about India. But unfortunately, they once say, for example, if somebody is in the US, they are not knowing what's happening in the ground here in India. So that's where media organizations like Indian Express come in, who kind of give them the right set of content. And also give them a perspective on what's happening. And of course, they're free to choose what they want. In terms of engagement with these users, we do have an international web page which kind of gives international content specific to different parts of the country or the location specific that they're from. So the homepage that opens up on the Indian Express, if it's open in the US, would be more of a US centric home page. And then you'll have bifurcations of India, you'll have bifurcations of sports and other domains, other verticals that we cover. Now, for somebody sitting in the US to have the Indian perspective of the US elections, is very important because his roots are belonging to India. His family is here in India. And that's what we capture, that's where we come in. people like, mean, organizations like PressReader are helping us to reach that. That's the benefit that we publishers sitting in India are happy to reach to the masses across the world.
And especially our people, because our people are there as you said, almost the population of Canada across the world. you know, and you know that connect of your motherland doesn't go no matter where you stay. So, and the word Indian in the Indian Express kind of gives that touch to these years.
Ruairí Doyle
[33:59] Thank you for the endorsement and the partnership and I couldn't agree more about he draw of the motherland have an individual subscription to the Irish times, where I keep in touch with what's happening at home. Just two more questions for you. if I understand it correctly, India has been considering a new law similar to, a bill in Canada called bill C 11 and the news media bargaining code in Australia that would force. tech giants like Meta and Google to compensate publishers fairly for content consumed on their platforms. Do you have any local context around this development? Is the law in effect? Is it coming into effect and are publishers being given a seat at the table in how this is being shaped?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[36:29] Not really. I think it's still in the works as per my knowledge. We do have this option of reporting content that is probably not appropriate or it's not fair or probably it's... That report option on these platforms has become more prominent now. And even in media organizations, users can report any article that is incorrect. But of course, in that space, if we talk about, as I said, everybody is free to say anything here in India, as per law. So there are some challenges to it as well. There's freedom of speech, there's freedom of expression in India. So having such laws implemented will take time. It's not going to be easy for the government to come up with such laws.
Ruairí Doyle
[37:33] You mentioned earlier the strength of the print component of the publishing industry in India and how it's interwoven into the fabric of society. One of the emerging trends today, obvious element in the room is AI. I'm interested to know, you know, at the Indian Express Group, are you experimenting with AI? Are you incorporating it in either on the content development or the product development side of things? What's happening overall in terms of the publishing industry and AI in India as a whole?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[38:01] See, AI is the future for a digital content ecosystem and we are very much at pace with it. Our COO, Nandgopal Rajan, he himself is a tech enthusiast and we're very much in that space right now. So a lot of things have been experimented every day as we speak. We're coming up with a very interesting product which will be live in a couple of months which I can't name right now because it's going to be a proper launch that's going to come up most probably by the end of December. And it's going to be a video platform based on AI, off Express. mean, it's going to be news content in a video format, but not more than that. So can't say more than that. that's some kind of interactive AI content is what we're working on.
We already have AI integrated in terms of content moderation on the website. We have comment moderation already in place with AI. We have a lot of tools internally where the product team has already implemented AI in their internal communication system and the back end that we work on. If AI is used in the right space, I think it kind of helps you. And Express, as I said in the beginning of the conversation, that Anant Koenka is very, very youth-driven, technology-driven, and we're very, very happy about getting AI into the picture. And yes, mean, in a couple of months, you're going to see a lot of news coming out of the Express office.
Ruairí Doyle
[44:04] Excited we will be playing close attention. Finally, to sign off with a question we like to ask all of our guests. Imagine a parallel universe where you're not in this world of reader revenue and partnerships or digital media and journalism. What unexpected career or passion might you be pursuing?
Siddharth Venkataraman
[40:29] I think music. So I love singing. I've been a music composer. I've been singing. do a lot of stage shows here and there in Delhi whenever I get time. I have my small band that we kind of jam every month. So yeah, I mean, that's a passion that I'll never miss. If not this, then probably I would be singing somewhere.
Ruairí Doyle
[41:00] Very cool, very cool. Maybe we will get to see a performance someday. Siddharth, thank you. We have successfully managed to talk through the fireworks of a wedding in the building next door. So I commend you for sticking to the job at hand. It was a pleasure to talk to you and fascinating to get insights from your perspective, from the Express Group's perspective, and from the industry overall in India. Thank you so much for joining us today and the best of luck.
Siddharth Venkataraman
[41:31] Thank you, Ru. Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you as well. And all the best and congratulations to PressReader for their 25th birthday again.
Ruairí Doyle
[41:41] And that's a wrap on our latest episode of the PressPectives Podcast. Thank you very much, Siddharth, for joining us and thank you all so much for tuning in. We will be bringing you new episodes every month, each one featuring a different leader in the world of publishing. So be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to catch the latest. Bye for now.
