September 24, 2005

Indians love their newspapersNews

Time Magazine’s Asia edition features an article on the ambitions of multinational media conglomerates and their efforts to grab a piece of the the Indian newspaper market, which has always been difficult to penetrate:

It’s a sign of the times that one of the hottest IPOs in India this year was that of a newspaper company. Shares in HT Media—which publishes Hindustan, a major Hindi daily, the Hindustan Times, an English-language newspaper, and two magazines—listed on the Bombay stock exchange on Sept. 1 after raising about $90 million through a public stock sale. The IPO marked the climax of an extraordinary year for the Indian newspaper industry, which has seen new editions launched, turf wars fought and sensational stories broken. All this exuberance is a heart-warming sight for newspaper publishers. In most countries, sales and profits of dailies have been declining for years, a slide that has been hastened recently by a surge of fresh competition from the Internet and TV. That’s why, as a newspaper boom rages in India, investors and media executives across the world are looking for a way to penetrate what is probably the world’s last great newspaper market.

Watching the Indian newspaper scene is like taking a trip in a time machine to early 20th century America, when newspapers ruled life and politics. Sales of most Indian newspapers are increasing, and advertising is soaring. There are some 50,000 newspapers in this country of more than 1 billion inhabitants. Although circulation data is often controversial and hard to verify, one recent survey suggests that the number of Indians who read a daily newspaper shot up by 14% in the past three years to 176 million. (Most of them are reading newspapers in languages other than English—the Times of India, the top-selling English newspaper, is only the 12th largest.) It’s not hard to see the reasons for the boom: literacy is still expanding in India, and has increased by 21% over the past three years. A growing readership has combined with India’s other strengths—a vital economy and democratic culture—to make it a serious rival to China for the attention of global media investors. While there’s more advertising money in the Middle Kingdom, “India is less regulated than China and it’s easier to make money here,” says Vivek Couto, executive director of Media Partners Asia, a Hong Kong-based industry consultancy.

It’s obvious that if Times of India, with its often shockingly poor quality, is the top-selling English newspaper in India, then there is plenty of money to be made if the government loosens enough restrictions.  Current restrictions include the requirement that foreign media can sell only international editions that don’t contain local content or advertising and that foreign owners can only maintain a 26% share of the company.

And speaking of penetrating the Indian media market, via Tiffinbox (thanks for the tip Sendhil) we learn that Media Transasia is launching an Indian edition of Maxim.  I am bitter because I thought of this idea YEARS ago but I had no capital to make it happen.

Media Transasia is all set to bring international titles to India. First off their list is ‘Maxim’, the general interest magazine for men. ‘Maxim’ is targeted exclusively at men and will be launched by the end of 2005…

Commenting on the magazine, Sharma says, “The Indian edition of ‘Maxim’ will be similar to the international edition in terms of design, layout and tone, but the content will be adapted to suit Indian sensibilities…” [Link]

abhi on September 24, 2005 02:20 PM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post