Is Drop In Indian Print Circulation Unfolding An Interesting Story?
Around end of last year, I wrote an article titled “End of Tangible Media“. In that post, I was more or less ruminating over the future of print media or more specifically any tangible media that we consume in our day to day lives.
On similar lines, ContentSutra posted an article yesterday titled “Widespread Drop In Circulation Of English Dailies In Latest ABC Round” which more or less validates my hypothesis that industry-wide drop of print circulation (which also forms a formidable entity in tangible media).
Some of the reasons as I’ve mentioned earlier are but obvious like:
1. Rising “Digitization” of content is putting more stress on top-line growth; and drop of subscription is not helping much in that effort. Digitization makes content transportable across digital and mobile platforms. This is a big thrust for entertainment and media companies including print.
2. Cost of reaching the target: (As mentioned earlier in one of my article) Study shows that over the last five years, the cost of reaching the target audience has risen four times, even though the basic TV viewing time has increased. But because there is an increase in the number of channels, advertisers are forced to purchase more spots to reach the target audience. So I believe the initial phase of transformation has started i.e. adopting digital channels to market.
3. Cost of newsprint has increased manifold on Y-0-Y basis which again is putting a lot of pressure on bottom-line also. Not to mention the rising cost of operating such entity with huge chunk of back-end support. All this definitely is multiplying the miseries of tangible media.
Amongst all these, there is still lot of opportunities uptapped in regional segment. Regional language newspapers has shown sales growth much due to the nature of untapped markets which again opens door for further penetration. But surely English Dallies are still making some amount of profits in the meantime.
But going forward, there definitely would be some changes more due to the nature of consumer shifting to devour more digital content online/mobile rather than just buying print format. That’s means some changes are surely due on that front.
Personally, I would be looking at this sector more minutely to get more interesting perspectives. But till then, let me know what do you think?
Note: English ABC Comparison October 2009 (PDF link)
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October 15th, 2009 at
Interesting perspective Sampad. Surely innovation in the business model of the print industry is due. By the way, read this article in Afaqs (http://tinyurl.com/yk4r7pk) which says this – "In an average CMO advertising budget, 17 per cent of the overall advertising spend goes to digital media, while 24.7 per cent and 19.4 per cent of the total advertising amount is allocated to print and TV respectively. Outdoor gets 10 per cent, while 4.5 per cent ad spend is allotted to radio". So about 1/4 of marketing spend is going towards print format of advertising.
October 15th, 2009 at
If you notice the story posted at ContentSutra, you'll notice that newspapers like DNA is not mentioned. When DNA launched in Bangalore, it did manage to 'steal' subscription from a lot of its competitors. Plus I heard it's growing in Mumbai as well.
Digitisation is a possibility, but I haven't seen mass-cancellation of newspaper subscriptions as yet, not in India at least