As India goes to polls on April 7 this year, there is one sector, which hopes to gain substantially out of this.

The Indian print industry is expected to witness a 15-17 per cent jump in its advertising revenues expects during the national elections. The scenario is ditto for television also.

Jehil Thakkar, Head (Media) at advisory firm KPMG, said that despite overall slowdown the media and entertainment sector continued to grow and of this the growth of print industry was the highest buoyed by election related expenditures.

Thakkar said," Print had a better year in 2013 as five states went for elections. It contributed substantially to the revenues."

Advertising spends by political parties are likely to go up in double digits.

Last year the the print industry grew by 8.5 per cent at Rs 24,300 crore from Rs 22,400 crore in 2012 despite a challengin macroeconomic environment when the GDP grew at 4.9 per cent rate.

Much of this growth has been attributed to print media's advertising revenues. According to Thakkar, most advertisers have shunned their cautious approach and backed the extensive reach and localisation benefits offered by the print media.

Thakkar further said that he sees no concern for the print industry and added that there will be major expansion by national players in the regional segment. "We will see more regional language papers in coming months and the already present English dailies will also expand to provide local and regional content," he added.

Last year, two national publishing houses Bennett and Coleman and the Hindu Group entered the Bengali and Tamil language. Besides, HT Media's Hindi paper 'Hindustan' continued to grow at a faster pace.

While English dailies continued to witness subdued growth, regional and vernacular markets performed better on the back of low media penetration, high population growth and rising income and literacy levels, Thakkar added. The Hindi print market grew by 10.5 per cent and vernacular grew by 10 per cent in 2013.

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