The Hindu Business Line : The great paper chase

Newspapers old and new are trying all manner of tricks to attract readership in the course of their launch/expansion plans. Expense and innovation are the constants in this game.

MY day could never start well without a newspaper. These days I am having trouble reaching work on time. I like to blame that on newspapers. I receive eight daily newspapers every morning and this could rise to nine. With about two hundred pages to `read,' I hardly manage to glance through the pages of all these newspapers. Why don't I just discontinue those that I merely glance at? Well, I am emotional about newspapers. And many of them are complimentary. Still, I could never think of tuning into the television news in the morning, though I am addicted to surfing news channels at night. What does all this mean?

Well, firstly, the good news is that newspaper reading is growing. The latest NRS noted that the average time spent on reading newspapers is increasing. Obviously, increasing literacy levels are adding to the readership of newspapers. The credibility of the print medium and the fact that they are spreading into the vast interior heartland of India is also making a difference.

However, changing demographics are having a profound impact on the fortunes of newspaper publishers.

Remember the days when newspaper reading was a family tradition? Your grandfather read The Statesman or The Hindu or The Times of India, your father continued the tradition and you too followed suit. Many years ago, this habit-forming tendency was touted as the reason why very old newspapers reigned supreme in their respective constituencies. The Statesman in Kolkata, Deccan Herald in Bangalore, The Hindu in Chennai and The Times of India in Mumbai were examples always trotted out. In those days people also spoke about the fact that people liked the comfort of knowing just where their favourite page was. For the second-string newspapers this was a handy excuse to remain in the second slot.

What everyone chose to overlook was that the country was changing. It was getting younger. It was relocating faster. And the new generation, brought up on new-world values, had little time for tradition to dictate what they read every morning. Suddenly, the readers seemed to want certain things that were probably not there in their newspapers. The only thing that had not changed were the newspapers themselves.

The birth of The Telegraph in Kolkata could probably be called a defining moment in the publishing history of the country. It put paid to the belief that old was gold. At least in the newspaper industry. The changing profile of the reader including a dynamic cosmopolitan `new' customer in Bangalore dictated change there.

Also, at this time the new world values where loyalty was measured in microseconds of attention span brought in the spectre of change led by a practice called `predatory pricing.' This literally translated into what was euphemistically termed as an `invitation price' which would be abnormally low. Those publishers who had deep pockets made savage inroads into traditional markets. Yet another bastion of perceived loyalty had crumbled.

What about the comfort of knowing that the sports news was always on the back page or that the entertainment advertisements were always on say Page 5? Well, changing readership priorities have allowed newspapers like The Times of India to keep changing not just the position of their edit page, but also the position of individual parts of their edit page. What about old favourites like the `middle'? Well, they seem to have gone to that heaven where dead pieces of old institutions go.

The mode of selling and marketing the newspapers has also undergone a sea change. Old times saw, for some inexplicable reason, advertisements of a newspaper appearing in that newspaper itself. I always wondered why they had to keep telling me I was smart to read their newspaper. I had paid hard-earned money for it, remember? Also, how would non-readers of the newspaper ever get to know what they were missing?

Well, the aggressive marketers have changed all that for good. Firstly, the great outdoor became the medium of choice for publishers by default. Competitive newspapers would not carry their advertising and television was too expensive. Nowadays, television is being used by newspapers like The Hindustan Times, and wonder of wonders, The Times of India in Mumbai is happily carrying the Mumbai-launch advertising of The Hindustan Times.

Please view this development against the backdrop of the TV advertising of the HT that positions readers of other newspapers as blind, and publishers as those who have been keeping their readers in the dark all this time.

DNA, on the other hand, may not find advertising space in The Times of India for a different set of reasons entirely. Its campaign, which is a pure high-decibel outdoor burst, began with asking the reader to design his or her own newspaper and has progressed to a campaign that profiles the reader now. DNA would have you believe that young savvy readers are likely to buy into its product.

Finally, the sales and delivery model that lasted for so many decades may be undergoing a radical change. Newspapers traditionally had `newsstand' sales from where a fairly large proportion of their readers picked up their daily fix. The remaining sales were made through `hawkers' who delivered the newspaper home and collected the money at the end of the month. Subscription sales for daily newspapers were always a very small proportion of the total sales.

If what has happened in Jaipur, Gujarat and what seems to be happening in Mumbai is any indication, we might be witnessing a massive change in this delivery system. The Hindustan Times has been touting a scheme where a newspaper has a cover price of Rs 2.50 but actually costs just Re1 per day. If you factor in a cash-back scheme on an advance payment of an annual subscription. A reader who goes in for this scheme gets a glossy booklet with twelve coupons affixed with a fancy hologram. A coupon is given at the end of every month to the `hawker' who delivers the newspaper home. This gives a feeling of security to the reader who was sceptical about a one-time advance payment.

DNA seems to be working on a similar route but for a monthly scheme. What percentage of readers it will retain after a month is anybody's guess but a flamboyant start is taken for granted.

With different marketing techniques and increased and improved content one sees a phase of tremendous churn in the market. The only thing that is sure is that the great paper chase will be as expensive as it needs to be innovative. Play on!

(The writer heads Canco Advertising.)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
The great paper chase

An honest brand

Zee Star salvo

AAAI

`Don't offer Shanghai in Mumbai'

A shaky growth curve

PR job fraught with pitfalls

Top mix