The news of digital platforms on the rise and predictions of print media collapsing have been doing the rounds for quite sometime. We also see a frantic search for new ways to monetize content that’s often available for free online. In such times it is hard to ignore the fact that social media gives any business an interactive channel to communicate with its customers.
In a market where information is treated as a commodity, which in turn has diminished individual brand value, social media can provide a good fighting chance for the survival of the newspaper industry, but how far does this view stand close to the reality or become a strategy? Pradeep Unny, assistant vice president – production, newspaper and commercial at Amar Ujala, says, “As far as sales is concerned, my brand is not impacted much by social media. For a regional newspaper it doesn’t matter much. In the last three months our circulation has gone up by 1.5 lakh copies.”
Unny adds that Amar Ujala’s mobile audience is expanding –“As far as the digital media goes, you will find almost every person holding a smartphone, but no one knows how much that person is connected to the mobile applications (apps). As far as we are concerned, we download our Amar Ujala app to the subscriber’s smartphone and in this way we are able to send out live updates too. However, despite the growth in smartphone readership, the numbers in print are also growing and we have grown print circulation by 28% last year.
“Although we are there on Facebook and Twitter too which allows us to float news as and when it comes and let people share their views on it instantly and interact, which in turn attracts more people towards the brand, our newspaper’s readership base is also witnessing constant growth. Today we are ranked number one in Lucknow city and are leading the competition in Western Uttar Pradesh,” says Unny. This establishes the fact that even in the digital age, people are inclined towards reading newspapers.
Mobile audience expanding
Himanshu Gautam, business head – digital at Amar Ujala, says, “For us and any other vernacular brand, the mobile audience is expanding today. There’s a great movement happening today in terms of mobile internet and smartphone penetration. The major chunk of growth is coming from towns like Chandigarh, Kanpur and Dehradun. But print brings credibility to the table whereas social media is very risky in terms of authenticity and credibility and I think for another five to ten years print and social media will be able to coexist comfortably.”
“If you look at all the regional newspaper markets in India whether it’s Malayala Manorama in Kerala, Sakshi in Andhra Pradesh, Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran in Northern India – all are growing. Although social media is not negatively impacting the regional market, together with new electronic channles it has dented the English newspaper market. Newspaper growth is coming from the rural markets rather than the cities, which might be the reason why the English newspaper market is facing stagnation at some centres. People say a lot of things about the newspaper industry dying but the regional language dailies’ numbers speak a different story,” concludes Unny.
