Times of Malta had to take difficult decisions and face new challenges as it diversified into an ever-evolving digital domain, Allied Group of Companies managing director Adrian Hillman said yesterday.

This was done by making use of “platform-agile” employees and new management capabilities, he said.

Mr Hillman was delivering the keynote speech titled ‘Selling content – the 21st century challenge of knowledge society: the case of Times of Malta’ at the first Malta Chamber Marketing Committee event.

Mr Hillman, who is also the chairman of Progress Press, prefaced his talk with a candid disclaimer: his natural bias was towards the Times of Malta brand.

Its vision, he said, was to disseminate content that enriched people’s lives by informing them, educating them and entertaining them.

“Credibility doesn’t mean always getting it right but that our journalists endeavour to interpret what they see in a manner which they are convinced is right.”

The overwhelmingly positive response to the debate between the two party leaders organised before the general election was a clear indication that the brand had value and a unique selling proposition.

Describing it as “a pivotal event”, Mr Hillman added that this was very encouraging especially in light of the fact that the brand had not yet developed a deep understanding of audiovisual. Some of the challenges which faced the brand were whether it should keep giving away its content for free, as had been the tradition, or changing the system; and if the latter, should there be a solid paywall or a metered approach?

While breaking news and most other content would remain free of charge, the brand would continue building up its premium content, he said.

The ever-changing digital domain led to Times of Malta hiring a new chief technical officer to start building data mining models. The website timesofmalta.com receives 180,000 people daily who visit between one to five times a day. In a month, some 37,000 comments are submitted.

An internal debate, said Mr Hillman, revolved around whether comments should be moderated or not. By reading every single comment, Times of Malta was taking on some of the liability.

Last year, the brand ventured into new fora, including the television programme Times Talk, which recently emerged as the most followed current affairs programme in the pre-news hour on TVM.

Times of Malta also organised the Pink Fashion show, a highly successful event which showcased the winter collections of top international brands.

The brand would now be looking into launching a fully-fledged app, continuing ventures in audiovisual, creating further events and maximising its property portfolio.

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