Newsprint is alive and well in India with increasing sales and plenty of advertising revenue despite the digital revolution, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
It quotes Rajiv Kental, a vice president at the publisher of the Hindi-language daily Amar Ujala (Eternal Light), as saying: “Newspapers in India are in a sweet spot. The advertising market here has the potential to triple. Newspapers have years of growth ahead of them.”
New presses have been installed at Amar Ujala’s plant on the outskirts of New Delhi that will allow it to increase its print run by a third. Since 2011, the paper’s circulation has risen 64%, to around 2.3m. Ad sales are up 61%.
WSJ’s Gabriele Parussini reports that local vernacular newspapers serve newly prosperous people outside India’s biggest cities who prefer to read in their native languages rather than in English, as favoured by the elite.
People choose to buy newspapers because they lack computers and smartphones with reliable internet access. The article quotes Nic Dawes, chief content officer at Hindustan Times, as saying: “They still see print as a huge driver of awareness, even though their customers are by definition digital.”
Source: Wall Street Journal
