Prolonged polling proves pricey for print?
As curtains fall on the country’s mega polling extravaganza, it is time to take stock of the wins and losses. While we have been seeing happy and sad faces splashed across our TV screens and in our morning prints, how has it been for the country’s fourth estate? Today let’s look at how the Lok Sabha elections turned out for the newspaper industry. As per industry pundits, while the battle for democracy was supposed to bring significant financial gains for the print media it fell below expectations. This was especially because of the AdEx numbers recorded during the 2019 elections when political parties were estimated to have pumped in Rs 200 crore to the print sector by way of advertising. Moreover, print was the second highest contributor to total AdEx after TV in the same year.
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The story has turned out to be a bit grim this time, particularly for the English national dailies. Experts said the prolonged election schedule badly impacted industry revenues for the past two months - April and May.
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But some players are hopeful. Abhishek Karnani, Director, Free Press Journal, believes revenues will accelerate by 15% for the April to June quarter. Varghese Chandy, Vice President Marketing & Advertising sales at Malayala Manorama, also expects a 10-15% jump in the quarter. Most other players are also looking at double-digit growth. Prolonged polls to be blamed? As per the Business Head of a widely read English Daily, government advertising took a hit due to the prolonged voting schedule. Brands too didn’t want to fight for eyeballs during the election fever and stayed away from advertising on print. “Regional papers and mid-level national newspapers may have enjoyed the election season but mainstream legacy English newspapers have suffered heavily in this quarter. It wouldn’t be surprising if we lose business in double digits,” he said. Another player shared a similar point, saying: “It’s important to note that elections cause a drop in government advertisement and so the growth due to political ads gets offset to some extent.” Chandy further shared that this election saw most parties working on restricted funds. Karnani further said, “The industry always jokes that there is a fifth quarter in the election year. But this year political parties did not spend as earlier on print.” Missing govt ads The newspaper industry's biggest client is the government contributing 20-30% of print revenue, shared the Business Head of a daily. “Now, due to prolonged elections of two months, that 30% is gone. So the quarterly revenue does suffer.” For example, a leading English newspaper has a turnover of Rs 10,000 crore and 30-35%, of this (Rs 3,000-3,500 crore) comes via government ads every year. Of this, nearly Rs 250 crore is pumped in every month. But for the last two months this figure is likely to have come down to Rs 5-10 crore, an analyst explained. Experts suggest the government's intention was perhaps to reach the electorate mainly through digital medium and not mass media. An industry source said, “At least this government did not spend bucks on any promotion on what they've done in the last five years' time. Or maybe they were thinking that they don't have to tell anyone about what they have done.” Nevertheless, print players are still hopeful that the revenues will start picking pace June onwards. For more updates, be socially connected with us on
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