The growth may have been painfully slow. But the print media is still breathing, and not gasping for breath as most analysts continue to predict.
According to 2023 FICCI-EY report titled “#Reinvnent: India’s media and entertainment sector is innovating for the future”, the print media revenues grew 4% in 2023 to reach INR 260 billion. This may be less than the pre-Covid revenue of INR 295.7 billion, but the growth is heartening.
What’s more the FICCI-EY report predicts that print media will continue to grow over the next three years and touch INR 287.7 billion.
So, don’t write off print. But look at some of the reasons to cheer. In 2023,
- Advertising revenue grew 4%
- Circulation revenue grew 3%
- Magazine revenue grew 2%
- Average ad insertion size grew 4%
- Circulation revenues of English-language publications grew by 10%
- Circulation revenues of language publications increased 2%
- Government advertising picked up
What do the report’s findings indicate
Print is still respected by advertisers, and the medium continues to deliver returns. There were over 150,000 advertisers and 185,000 brands which used print during 2023. As long as this continues, print has nothing to worry.
However, it needs to increase its advertising footprint. As in the past, 50% of the ad revenue came from only five states – Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Even here, the advertisers favoured English and Hindi publications. These two languages walked away with 65% of the ad volumes. The regional languages with a smaller share of ad volumes must find ways to augment their earnings.
When it came to magazines, there was a marginal increase in revenue. You may say almost negligible at INR 0.1 billion. Once again, it was the English magazines that cornered the lion’s share – 46%. This is not good news for language magazines that continue to shrink.
The circulation revenue may have perked up, largely on higher cover prices, but the industry faces grim challenges on this front. The first is the growing disinterest of youngsters in delivering newspapers early in the morning. Most youngsters are switching to gig giants like Zomato or Swiggy leaving newspapers struggling to deliver their products.
The second is the movement away from two-newspaper homes. Readers are shedding the second newspaper because of easy availability of net-based information.
The third is the fear that home circulation has peaked.
However, some clarity will come when the Audit Bureau of Circulation and the Indian Readership Survey data becomes available. Both these organisations are yet to release their 2023 reports.
Print media cannot ignore the digital challenge. It must reinvent itself to stay relevant. Its greatest asset today is trust and credibility. The printed word is trusted more than the digital word both by readers and advertisers.
It is the product mix that needs a review. Plain, vanilla news will not work. The differentiator will be news content with depth, multiple perspectives, explanations and analysis.
Read an earlier report:
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