"I feel we're very often making the same mistake again and again – we have a strong sales force, we have the content, and there is a feeling that we can just put it online and it will be okay," said Roman Gallo, head of GalloMultimedia in the Czech Republic, in a panel discussion at the WAN-IFRA Middle East Conference. "Making a business in the online field is a very different activity. We have to see it very differently than the traditional part of the business."

His statement led to a discussion of the pros and cons of multimedia versus single media sales, and what each requires in terms of training and relationship building.

"Selling on different platforms takes lots of training, especially for those who sold only print," said Saeed Al-Ghamdi, Assistant Managing Director of Al Yaum Media in Saudi Arabia.

But Didier Brun, Publisher of Gulf Sports Media in Abu Dhabi, said that training difficulties were a short-term issue. "As younger people come on to the market, multimedia sales will be the norm," he said.

But all the attention to multimedia might be misplaced, panelists and audience participants said. "There seems to be a great willingness to discuss engagement and return on investment online, which produces 10 percent of our revenue, but no willingness to do this in our print newspapers, where we get 90 percent of our revenue," said Eamonn Byrne, a panel member.