Where print still reigns supreme

India Dispatch: While much of the media world and its consumers go digital, India's love affair with printed news is only growing. And as literacy and wealth rise in the countryside, it is regional publications that are driving this trend.

With the literacy rate growing by 3.2 per cent between the fourth quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, more Indians are reading newspapers and magazines. Suzanne Lee for The NationalShow less

The death knell may have sounded for a number of newspaper and magazine titles around the world, but India's print media sector is still enjoying growth.

It is not the country's busy and thriving cities that are largely fuelling this growth. Instead, media companies and advertisers have turned to smaller cities and towns where local publications are thriving amid improving literacy rates and burgeoning spending power.

"The regional print media has managed to gain the attention of even national advertisers," according to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

"With metros already being saturated, regional markets provide ample scope for growth in the media sector," it states. "To ride on the positive advertiser sentiment, several newspapers have launched local editions in regional languages. For instance, The Times of India has entered Kerala while The Hindu has launched its third edition in Kozhikode, besides introducing a printing facility in Mohali that will serve the states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

"Cashing in on the increased interest of advertisers in regional markets, niche magazines are launching regional editions as well. Some of these include Hello, Lonely Planet, Better Photography, Entrepreneur and Femina."

Print-media revenues grew to 190.7 billion (Dh12.62bn) rupees compared with 177.7bn rupees the previous year, the report notes. India's newspapers are expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent between last year and 2016. That compares to a decline of 1 per cent in the United Kingdom and a decline of 4 per cent in the United States, as a large number of readers have moved to online news.

Digital advertising revenues and internet usage is growing rapidly in India, but the move towards digital media is lagging behind more developed countries.

"There are parts of India in which the print media is growing and will continue to grow for some time to come," says Arnab Mukherjee, the senior vice president of professional services at Adfactors PR in India.

"Where literacy is low, now that literacy is growing," he adds. "You see a very interesting correlation between consumption and literacy, which is to be expected. Indians have claimed more than 1,600 mother tongues."

The literacy rate in India grew by 3.2 per cent between the fourth quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, according to data from the Indian Readership Survey.

"There is more and more purchasing power in the hands of the rural masses," says Mr Mukherjee. "Just their sheer numbers add up to a cumulative purchasing power which the people manufacturing products, planning advertising or running the publications and media, are recognising."

But he adds that digital consumption is also on the rise.

"Regional-language print media will continue to grow for some time at least, especially in those regions where literacy is low and literacy in growing," he says. "But it will be impacted by the fact that even in those regions because of the falling price or total cost of ownership of digital devices, digital device consumption will grow rapidly in those areas and digital media consumption will rise rapidly."

Kulwinder Singh founded the newspaper Postnoon in Hyderabad about a year-and-a-half ago.

"Regional editions are able to bring out very local content for consumption," says Mr Singh. "I know that Times of India and Hindustan Times and others have ventured out into that and they are coming out with very local editions, which are very city-specific, very region-specific, and also, in fact, using the local language. They're reaping the benefits because what's happening is the advertisers are finding it easier, and cheaper I would say, to target a specific community or a specific target audience."

He thinks that print media could still thrive in India over the next decade.

"In my opinion, for the next 10 years, I don't think this industry is going anywhere. We've got this habit of starting the day with a newspaper."

KPMG has also highlighted the growth of the industry outside the major cities.

"The rate of ad-spend growth in smaller cities has accelerated and overtaken the traditional markets," say its analysts. "These markets have two key drivers - the local retail market and national advertisers. These markets were dominated by local advertisers. However in the last few years, these territories have witnessed the emergence of national advertisers as well."

But Mr Mukherjee points out that a digital revolution in media consumption in India is inevitable.

"While there will be some more growth for some time to come, my personal opinion is that very soon we will see that it is the non-print media which starts taking over," he says.

"Trends noticed in developed countries do become visible in India after a time lag of a few years. That time lag is shortening day by day in many parts of the country. I don't think there is a teenager in a metro today who reads a newspaper, forget daily, maybe even once a month."