On a newspaper's birthday and an industry's birthday suit
Raju Narisetti -
Monday, November 17, 2008 5:25 AM
It was good to see a fat one-year-old show up at my house on 16 November morning in the form of a 96-page Mail Today, the slimline (a slightly longer tabloid) daily newspaper in New Delhi from the India Today group that turned 1. The 96-pager had a lot of ads, testimony to the special anniversary occasion perhaps, as well as that predominantly magazine group's ability to sell space. I have been a subscriber as well as a regular reader of the paper all year (in a household that gets nine newspapers every morning, getting a paper and reading aren't always related), having looking forward in anticipation to its arrival (I like small format papers for starters) and because of its attempt to offer a content-based alternative to resident heavyweights, Times of India and Hindustan Times.
I don't know how the paper is doing financially--given stubbornly high newsprint costs, a recently slowing economy, difficulties in getting distribution traction in a market where I suspect both its larger rivals have immense clout and aren't shy of using it to stymie upstarts. I suspect it isn't doing so great. But year one of any newspaper (or year two or three as well) is never easy on the profit & loss account. But from a reader perspective, at least this Romantic Realist believes Mail Today has been able to offer a newspaper that isn't me-too, tries to take risks and, in New Delhi, has the best Sunday metro newspaper offering in terms of consistent quality and eclectic offerings, surprising me with content and stories, not with unexpected design or confounding story selections as is the case with the Times of India and Hindustan Times, especially on weekends. I believe, perhaps naively, that ultimately, if readers find a product sticky, advertisers will have to follow.
Which is why I was also quite depressed to come across this subscription offer in the paper:
Call me old fashioned but it is frustrating to see how the newspaper industry in India has actively promoted the notion that an offering that is 100% new every day (a newspaper) is not worth the cost of the paper on which it is printed. Readers of the Romantic Realist know his pet peeve about a 24-page, all-color newspaper costing Rs10 just for ink and newsprint (not counting any other content generation costs including staff) and being so heavily subsidised by the industry itself.
A Mail Today costs Rs3.50 on the newsstand. So, for 365 days, its face value is about Rs1,275. And for two years, about Rs2,500. I suspect it costs about Rs6,200 in ink and paper costs for two years worth of the paper, taking very conservative costs of Rs8.50 a day. Yet the paper is being offered for Rs999 and, on top of it, you get coupons for Reebok shoes (depending on newspaper and offer, you can substitute this freebie for coffee makers, blankets, DVD players) worth Rs2,690. Essentially the signal that is being sent is that, without counting the resale value of the recycled paper on which it is printed, the paper is not only free but they are actually willing to pay me for simply telling them I am willing to get it for two years. What a deal! And what a sorry state of affairs for our entire industry.
I am sure there will be plenty of quibbles with my math and also with my reasoning. After all, if newspapers can use gimmicks and tactics--including so-called invitation prices--to drive down newspaper subscription costs to unreasonably low levels, circulation will soar. And in a game of volume, isn't it better for the industry to have much larger sales this way? And, if you are taking the social responsibility high ground, what better than to have more and more Indians access papers that are cheaper than free?
Fair enough. And, before anyone starts saying why doesn't Mint do it differently, let me add that as Editor, I don't make business decisions and, left up to me, I would have rather had 60,000 clearly identified readers who are able, willing and wanting to pay Rs10 a day for a quality read than 219,000 readers (Mint's Total Teadership according to the latest Indian Readership Survey data) or the 139,000 readers (Mint's Daily Readership according to the latest Indian Readership Survey data), including several thousand who bought it only because it was sold for Rs299 for a full year and then tell market researchers they rarely look at it.
My larger point is that if, as an industry, we have convinced readers that this useful product (any newspaper) that costs, at the very minimum, between Rs8-Rs10 to "manufacture" is not worth paying even 50% of what a cup of coffee costs from a street vendor in New Delhi, we have done incredible long-term damage to the business of newspapers and to journalism. Little wonder then that advertisers, who know how dependent newspapers will always be on ads for survival, are becoming more and more intrusive and brazen, often in active collusion with the ad sales departments of newspaper companies. After all, the thinking seems to go, if readers don't want to pay even a fraction of what a product costs, or get it for free, what right do they have to complain about the intrusion of advertising and paid-for content?