Business Today reacts to story "Businessworld outsells Business Today in Top 8 metros..."

Reacting to the story titled "Businessworld outsells Business Today in Top 8 metros, according to ABC, July-Dec 2002" (April 30), Ashish Bagga, executive director, The India Today Group, writes to agencyfaqs!, "…after reducing its price to Rs 5 and after branding itself the magazine of the ‘new economy' and after staying away from the ABC for nearly five years, BW has actually lost circulation."

To illustrate his point, Bagga makes the following observations:

• Businessworld dropped out of the ABC in the year 1996 (citing "matter of principles"), when the magazine's last audited circulation stood at 89,457 (July-December).

• In 1997, BW got its circulation figures audited by AF Ferguson at 1.31 lakh copies for the period January to June, 1997. For the period of July-December 1997 the British ABC certified BW's circulation at 1.43 lakh copies (back then the magazine had a cover price of Rs 15).

• On its return to ABC, BW recorded a figure of 1.10 lakh, a clear drop of 23 per cent (that despite dropping its price to Rs 5 in 1998).

Bagga says, "One sees that effectively BW's circulation has declined from its last audited figure of 1.43 lakh to 1.10 lakh, resulting in a 23.5 per cent decline and a loss of 33,721 copies." He also points to the fact that Businessworld saw a spike in its circulation only in the last month of the latest audit - from an entry figure of 1.01 lakh to 1.27 lakh in December 2002.

On their part, Businessworld executives find the comparison inappropriate. Says the publication's spokesperson, "Comparing British ABC with an Indian ABC is invalid because the methodologies are not comparable. The British ABC includes in its certificate all institution sales, while Indian ABC excludes all institutional sales, B-School subscriptions, sponsored copies etc. The current BW figures have been arrived at after excluding all sales to institutions like Jet Airways, IIMA etc. Businessworld's total sales would have been substantially higher if institutional sales were not excluded as per ABC guidelines." Businessworld also says it leads BT in stand sales - at 93,434 copies versus BT's 60,045 copies.

Interestingly, during the same period, that is, July-December 1997 to July-December 2002, the circulation of BT has also dropped, albeit marginally, from 1.25 lakh to 1.21 lakh. This while its price was cut from Rs 15 to Rs 10 in October 2001.

The fact, however, remains that when it comes to readership, BT leads the market by a long chalk. According to the NRS 2002, while 2 lakh SEC A-plus readers prefer BT, only 76,000 read BW. Among the SEC A1/A2, 4.1 lakh read BT, and 1.4 lakh read BW.

To put their side of the story, Businessworld executives cite two studies - the Decision Makers' Survey (ORG-Marg) and the Horizon's study released by BBC - which, according to them, vouch for its popularity. The Decision Makers' Survey showed that 53 per cent of the decision makers (general manager onwards) read BW, while 48 per cent read BT. And according to the Horizons 2003 study, while Business Today is read by 8 per cent of the audience represented, Businessworld was read by 7 per cent.

One gets the feeling that one hasn't heard the last of this... © 2003 agencyfaqs!