<span class="htext1"> How media has changed:</span> The English press is losing its premium status - Bharat Kapadia

The growth of Indian print media has been an envy for many across the globe. India still continues to be one of the cheapest newspaper subscription market across the world and this low priced strategy continues to expand the market

What a decade! Almost everything has changed and some of it beyond recognition. Internet, mobile, malls, multiplexes, with a trigger of liberalisation, have changed us completely as consumers.

So has the print industry. It has seen unusual growth unprecedented in the previous 100 years. The print media reached out to 24.3 crore readers as per R1, IRS 2003. Six years later, the numbers increased to 32.6 crore readers as per R1, IRS 2009.

The growth of Indian print media has been an envy for many across the globe. India still continues to be one of the cheapest newspaper subscription market across the world and this low priced strategy continues to expand the market.

In the last ten years, broadsheets dominated the growth story and with the technology becoming efficient and affordable, newspapers started multiple editions. However this growth was mainly led by the regional players.

Today, there are independent editions and printing centers of most newspapers serving a radius of 100 km or less. Besides, newspapers have increased the number of coloured pages, and have introduced trimmer versions and a more contemporary look along with aggressive marketing contributing to a very healthy growth.

The other significant change in the last 10 years has been the growth of Hindi dailies which takes the top slots among the top 10 dailies. Gradually, the English press is losing its premium status with regional newspapers smartening up. Further, the new media with more user-friendly technologies will widen acceptance amongst the English daily readers than the regional daily readers.

The content in print has also changed to infotainment. Earlier, the front page was only meant for political events, policies and announcements where Bollywood was a totally untouchable subject for the mainline dailies. Today, a trivia on a Bollywood personality can be a lead story.

With international investments, tie-ups and syndication arrangements, more global news and features have also become accessible.

On the magazines front, they have had to constantly reinvent themselves, as both TV and newspaper supplements took away their exclusivity to deal with features, lifestyle news and gossip.

The ones who didn't adapt to the changes, started losing out. New titles in niche segments saw special interest magazines with a decent cover price getting acceptance and the trend continues. But when it comes to distribution, the model hasn't changed dramatically. It's still a routine that the newspaper-wala still delivers the paper early in the morning. The only change was that publishers marketed their annual subscription drives coupled with gifts and freebies, though the delivery was done by the same vendor network.

With more outlay of money, and vast competition, publishers are also marketing their titles aggressively. Ten years back the need to market titles wasn't as much as it is now. Another important milestone was the relaxation on FDI limit. After debating for years, the government finally opened FDI in the newspaper industry capping it to 26 per cent for the news category, and allowing up to 76 per cent in non-news. Many believe that the cap may be relaxed to take FDI ownership to 40 or even 49 per cent. However, with the global economic slowdown, many of the potential deep pocket investors are themselves looking for help.

The advent of internet and mobile has still not affected the newspaper business in India. Strangely, internet usage is still dominated by people acquainted with English. Thus, unlike in developed countries where readers and advertisers have migrated to internet to a worrisome proportion, in India the impact has been negligible - so far.

The best part is that despite competition from the new media in some form or the other, the print media still continues to get a lion's share of the advertising revenue. Compared to other media business, it's in print where you will find hundreds of players who are making a decent profit every year, whereas in other media, there would be many players who are still to break even.

To conclude, technology has come like a tsunami and it has the power of changing many things quickly, so the next decade is really going to be more challenging and, therefore, more exciting!