The Indian economy came to a virtual halt on 25 March when the government announced its decision to implement a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19. Although the lockdown has impacted businesses across the board, the print media, cinema and live entertainment industry are hit especially hard.
According to a report by Adfactor, the Indian newspaper industry is expected to lose Rs 4,000-5,000 crore in just March and April due to the lockdown. The media and entertainment sector’s annual revenue is likely to decline by 16% in FY2020-2021.
“India’s media industry has been hit hard by the unparalleled economic crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report said. “Dwindling advertising revenues and circulation of print copies have led major media houses to shut or scale down operations that were non-profitable further restructuring the organization. A major impact of this was seen on print publications.”
Scaling down media operations
Due to the lockdown induced economic shrinkage, some leading media houses and publications have resorted to workforce reduction and salary cuts. The Economic Times Hindi and Sandhya Times have stopped publishing their Delhi editions while Maharashtra Times in Marathi has shut down its three editions — Kolhapur, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar.
The TV Today Network announced ceasing operations and transmission of Delhi Aaj Tak with effect from 30 June 2020. The group may also close down all its niche print products, including Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan magazines, and the Mail Today newspaper.
Mint Lounge has disengaged a couple of regular columnists, and senior journalists Priya Ramani and Natasha Badhwar have been asked to leave.
Leading Marathi media house Sakal Media Group has ceased operations for Sakal Times and Gomantak Times. The closure impacts 45 editorial staff and 13 journalists, respectively. Furthermore, Sakal (Marathi) has closed the Jalgaon, Solapur, Nanded, and Akola editions.
Dainik Bhaskar has temporarily closed its 4-page pullouts and merged the Gurugram and Faridabad news in its Delhi edition. Amar Ujala’s Gurgaon and Faridabad editions have also been merged.
The Telegraph in English shut down its Jamshedpur, Ranchi, and Guwahati editions from 1 June 2020. The ABP (Anand Bazar Patrika) Group, which also owns The Telegraph and Fortune India, sent an internal email announcing vacating its rented offices in Delhi, Bengaluru, Noida, Chennai, and Hyderabad.
The ABP Group shut down its Infocomm department and is most likely to close the iconic Bengali magazines — Sananda and Desh. Henceforth, only digital copies will be available. ABP is shutting all offices other than Kolkata as a large number of employees have been sacked, and the rest are working from home.
Network 18 has announced the shut down of its lifestyle channel FYI TV18 from 8 July, while Firstpost has shut its business desk. Forbes India suspended print operations beginning its issue dated 27 March. Bloomberg-Quint announced shutting down of its television division. The move leads to 100 people losing their jobs.
Nai Duniya, owned by Dainik Jagran, suspended its print operations while Bennett Coleman’s flagship Times of India has shut all editions in Kerala except Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. The New Indian Express has started to vacate all offices across eight bureaus in Kerala; Business-Standard.com has discontinued Auto Publishing of news from various wire agencies.
