As opposed to the West where a few newspapers are either shutting shop or switching entirely to digital, India seems to be faring a lot better, thanks to the growing literacy rate and demand for regional newspapers. Supriyo Sinha, Vice President - Bengali Dailies Anandabazar Patrika and Ebela, talks to Sneha Ullal about the challenges of the print industry right now and whether an online model will work for all Indian dailies
Q] In comparison to the West, where weeklies are close to or have completely shut down or only operate online, how do you feel the newspaper industry is faring in India right now? In your opinion, what are the key factors that are making this industry stay up on its feet?
The newspaper industry in India is doing well as compared to that in the West. While the circulation of paid dailies in the Western markets has been de-growing over the last 5 years ) — US (-12.5%), Canada (-18%), Germany (-10%) and UK (-13%) — the same has been growing in India (+ 11%). I believe that there are five key reasons driving this phenomenon:
1. The penetration of digital media in India is less than in the West. While markets like US, Canada, Germany and UK have about 96% of the population using the Internet, only about 15 to 20% of the people in India actively surf the Internet.
2. Newspapers still have a large potential for further penetration — in India, circulation of newspapers is about 143 copies per thousand of adult population. For Singapore this number is 256, and for Hong Kong it is 355. This shows that there is significant room for further penetration of newspapers in India. Also, the literacy rate in India has improved over the last decade.
3. India has a large number of regional newspapers. These papers have two major advantages: one is the ability to connect with the non-English speaking population, and secondly, the ability to customise news at the last mile (for example, district-level news). Based on these two factors regional newspapers continue to make a large contribution in sustaining the Indian newspaper industry
4. Newspaper advertising has also seen significant growth in India over the last five years. While newspaper advertising in the western markets has de-grown by 12 to 50% over the last five years, in India it has grown by over 50%. This creates a positive cycle — as more advertising comes into newspapers, publishing companies can invest more into the product; this helps growth in circulation and readership and that, in turn, goes back to fulfilling the needs of advertisers. Print still remains the largest contributor (41%) to the advertising market in India while digital contributes about 10%.
5. Newspapers continue to command the highest credibility in terms of content as well as advertising. A McKinsey research showed that while 66% of respondents consider newspaper advertising to be ‘inspiring confidence and informative’, only a mere 12% thought so of ads on the Internet.
Q] Do you believe that a combined ‘print-digital’ model for newspapers will work for Indian audiences?
Yes it will work. Let me share two specific examples. Firstly, we have recently started publishing Augmented Reality (AR)-enabled content in our papers. The response has been overwhelming. This clearly shows that readers today are willing to enhance their ‘newspaper experience’ with a ‘digital experience’ on their smartphones. This also enables us to publish pictures and content that we could not publish in the paper due to space constraints. So this is a win-win for both readers as well as for publishers.
Secondly, we have experimented with both free as well as paid-for e-paper models. We noticed that there were a surprisingly large number of takers for the paid e-paper subscriptions. This also shows that the Indian audience is very open to a combined ‘print-digital’ model and willing to pay for good content. Most newspaper groups are offering such propositions today and I believe that is the right way to go. The print-digital model works well for advertisers as well. A combination of print and digital provides better ROI and higher flexibility to advertisers. 70% of marketers currently use print to direct audiences to digital content. Most importantly about 46% believe that print is vital to drive interest in mobile/digital content and campaigns.
Q] How can digital media be used as an efficient monetising model for newspapers?
The optimal digital media monetizing model is yet to be cracked, I think. But there are a large number of possibilities. Again, let me share a couple of examples. Imagine a print ad which is enabled with Augmented Reality. On scanning the AR coded print ad, the reader can be directly taken to the specific ection of the advertiser’s website. This way, the advertiser is not only building awareness about his brand, but also taking the consumer to the closest point-of-sale online. Such a feature could be priced at an appropriate premium beyond the price of the print ad.
Also, we should move towards multimedia and integrated marketing solutions rather than just print ad space. Imagine a print ad of, say, a camera company with a call-for-action for a photo contest. Instead of placing just a print ad, there could be a microsite created for the photo contest and participants could be asked to register using an email ID or mobile number.
In this case, while the print ad serves its purpose of building awareness, the accompanying microsite provides the additional benefit of sourcing relevant ‘warm leads’ for the camera company. These are ways by which digital media can be leveraged to better monetise newspapers. We, at ABP, have experimented with such models and they work. However, the concept has to be scaled up significantly by the newspaper industry as a whole.
Q] What unique initiatives have you undertaken to strengthen the circulation and numbers of Anandabazar Patrika? How does it strive to edge the competition in the market, especially in regional territories?
There are three specific things we have done. Firstly, I believe the strength of the product is what eventually matters. To that end, we have made significant improvements in Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) as a product. ABP has the most number of pages across all Bengali newspapers, and the largest diversity of topics. We also have 12 separate district editions, where we provide ‘last mile’ news at the district level, to drive readership. Secondly, we have run three campaigns this year to communicate the brand proposition and renewed product proposition to readers. Market research shows that the renewed ABP proposition has been very well received by readers. Finally, we have initiated growing the Bengali readership market as a whole. This has been initially targeted towards the youth, where we have noticed some generic decline in readership of Bengali newspapers and Bengali reading in general. As part of this initiative, we have launched a state-wide Bengali language championship and story-writing competition. Both of these have received an extremely encouraging response.
There are several other initiatives in the pipeline as well. Growing a language as a category will take time. However, as the market leader, we have taken the task upon ourselves to help sustain and grow Bengali readership. As a result of these initiatives, Anandabazar Patrika continues to maintain its market leadership, even at a significant price premium to other players. ABP is priced between 25% and 100%, more than other Bengali papers, but still has a readership which is twice its nearest competitor.
Q] In your opinion, what are the main challenges for ABP as well as the Indian newspaper industry as a whole? How do you plan to overcome these?
The newspaper industry today is facing three significant challenges: increasing newsprint costs accentuated by the unfavourable exchange rate movement; economic slowdown resulting in pressures on advertising revenues and potential challenge from the digital media in the time to come.
I think, as an industry, we need to do three things: apply lean operating principles to eliminate waste, which can result in significant cost savings without compromising quality; innovate in ad sales by moving away from ‘space selling’ and shifting to ‘solution selling’ to clients and lastly, continuously strengthen and improve on the print product with simultaneous integration with digital platforms wherever possible.
At ABP we have experimented with models of ‘solution selling’ and it has worked wonders for our clients. In one such case, our client’s growth in Calcutta went up from 13% to 25% during the course of the integrated marketing programme we worked with them on.
Q] What goals have you charted out for your newspapers? How do you see their position and growth five years from now?
We will continue to maintain our large leadership position with our heritage brand, Anandabazar Patrika. We had also launched a new paper called Ebela, the first ever Bengali tabloid daily. Ebela, which is barely a year old, has been doing very well in the youth segment due to its content and presentation (tabloid format, short news snippets, broad coverage, large focus on sports and entertainment, etc). We will continue to meet the needs of the reading youth through Ebela.
With these two papers, we expect to maintain our leadership not only at an overall level, but in specific reader segments as well. Also, we hope that we will be able to grow the Benagli reading market as well, through some of the initiatives I mentioned earlier.
Feedback: sneha.ullal@exchange4media.com
