Leading The Digital Surge @ Hindustan Times

Rajiv Bansal, who heads Hindustan Times Digital Streams, talks about the Digital preparedness of HT, its booming branded content business, and about investing in a big way in vernacular content

- Neeta Nair

He spent the last 18 years of his career building Digital brands in Silicon Valley, and when he arrived in India to head the Digital team at Hindustan Times, he began to infuse a lot of that expertise into the newsroom there too. While HT’s newsroom in Connaught Place, New Delhi may have undergone a revamp a year before he came in, Rajiv Bansal, Chief Digital Officer and CEO of HT Digital Streams, has managed to give it his ‘digitally ready’ touch.

Talking about it, Bansal says, “We have a great tech infrastructure. Certain spaces in our newsroom look straight out of Silicon Valley. We created systems that integrate the content flow in the Print version and on the website. So, when a Print reporter creates a story, it becomes available in a centralized content management system. From that system, we can rewrite the news for Digital or Print. Unlike our competitors, we don’t need a different set of Print reporters and Digital reporters. We have been able to make use of all of the thousands of people who have been covering the hyperlocal nature of news for us.”

The company is believed to have put in investments to the tune of Rs 100 crore in integrating Print and Digital at HT, when Bobby Ghosh was the editor, but later embarked on a severe cost-cutting spree which resulted in the laying off of several journalists even from big bureaus like New Delhi and Mumbai.