CHAPTER. 7 FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS

7.0 Findings The researcher has classified the findings into two sections; one on the basis of quantitative data collected through survey and another is the qualitative data collected through unstructured interviews. For the quantitative data structured questionnaires were used to conduct the survey and the sampling was stratified random sampling. For collecting the qualitative data interviews of experts were conducted to fulfil the findings of the research. The second classification is thus on the basis of the qualitative data.

7.1 Findings on the basis of quantitative data: 1. It can be observed that among the 2000 respondents age of readers is from 13 years onwards. Maximum 41.60% of readers are between the age group of 25-35 years. Average age is 32.32 years.

2. Out of the total number of respondents 63.80% of readers are males and 34.20% of the respondents are females.

3. About 79% of the readers are having an annual household income between 5 to 12 lacs. Average annual household income is Rs. 9.426 lacs. 7.8% of the total respondents were from the annual household income group of below 5 lacs.

4. 27.40% readers are having zero work experience. 23.60% of readers have a work experience between 5-10 years, while 19.15% readers have 2-5 years of work experience. 79.50% of the total respondents are having a work experience ranging from 0 to 10 years. 20.50% of the total respondents are having a work experience of 10 years and more.

5. 28.10% of the total readers were students followed by 21.85% of the readers who are into the career of education. 13.9% of the total respondents are having their own business. 165 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

6. It can be observed that The Times of India is the number one newspaper in Mumbai with 72.60% of total readers, followed by Mid Day with 62.40% of readers and Mumbai Mirror with 58.30% of total readers. It is important to note that Mumbai Mirror was offered free of cost along with The Times of India in the initial stages. Mid Day reaches the market around noon and is not a morning daily. The Economic Times is read by 32.70% of the total respondents but is a financial morning daily. Other than that 22.25% of the total respondents were the readers of DNA.

7. It can be observed that 36.40% of the total readers are reading their newspaper for more than 10 years. 31.35% of the total respondents have started reading the newspaper in the last 3 years; 16.20% in the last one year and 15.15% in between land 3 years. These 31.35% readers can be termed as new readers.

8. It can be observed that on Sundays, The Times of India shows an increase of 5.70% in the number of readers while Mumbai Mirror shows an increase of 3.70% in readers. However on Sundays Mid Day shows a decrease in the number of readers by 31.50%. Several other newspapers like DNA, Hindustan Times, Mint, Indian Express and The Economic Times showed a drop in readership on Sundays.

9. Out of the total number of readers it can be observed that 1562 readers that mean 78.10% subscribe the newspaper while 438 readers do not subscribe. 13.05% of the total readers said they buy the newspaper daily.

The main reason to not subscribe for the newspaper is regular travelling. It can also be observed that 7.53% of the total readers do not buy the newspaper daily as they do not get time to read. 5.48% of the total readers do not read a newspaper regularly.

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10. The main reasons to buy a particular newspaper are Good articles 75.30% Good news 72.40% Brand loyalty 43.45%

11. It can be observed that 41.65% of the total readers also responded that they buy a particular newspaper because of availability. Upon further questioning, some respondents said that the earlier newspapers did not reach their doorstep on time.

12. 26.60% of the total respondents said they purchased a particular newspaper because it was a habit for them to read that newspaper.

13. It can be obsen/ed that the most favourite and preferred columns/ supplements are political, international news, front page and sports news. The appointment section has received the least rating 17.75% in the category of the most favourite and preferred supplement or section of the newspaper.

14. 57.60% of the total readers responded that they were reading a different newspaper before reading the existing one. 42.40% of the readers are reading the same newspaper and have not changed.

15. It can be observed that 80.47% readers who started reading a new newspaper were reading The Times of India while 19.53% readers were reading The Indian Express before reading the existing newspaper.

16. It can be observed that 83.77% of the total 1152 readers who have started reading a new newspaper are still reading the previous newspaper. 7.3% readers who have started reading the new newspaper have stopped reading the previous newspaper.

17. 58.34% of the total readers who started reading an additional newspaper, started due to an attractive scheme. 29.64% of the total readers who started 167 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar reading an additional newspaper said they wanted another opinion or views for the news.

18. The research shows that 67.86% of the total 84 readers who stopped reading the previous newspaper, stopped due to the lack of content. Another main reason to stop reading the previous newspaper was also the poor language in the newspaper. 32.14% readers said the language in the previous newspaper was poor in quality.

19. It can be observed that the dominating factor to start reading the particular newspaper is parents. 73.50% people answered that their parents were the influential factor to decide which newspaper they should be reading. 32.85% readers said that the newspaper campaigns were the influencing factor to start reading a particular newspaper.

20. The research shows that The Times of India readers have highest satisfaction levels, followed by Mumbai Mirror.

21. Out of 2000 respondents, 1148 respondents purchased or subscribed the newspaper. Out of these 1148 respondents 612 i.e. 53.31% of respondents preferred DNA than Hindustan Times.

22. It was observed that 38.10% people feel they can’t say about the importance of newspapers in the years to come, with the advent of increasing number of news channels and free to view news on the web. 29.8% of the respondents feel that the newspapers will no longer be important.

23. It was observed that 75.50% of the total respondents prefer to read The Times of India first.

24. The research shows that 90.90% of the total respondents said that their loyalty towards their newspaper changed due to the advertising campaigns by the newspapers. However upon further questioning it was found that they

168 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar bought the additional newspaper but most of them also maintained the existing newspaper.

25. All respondents responded that newspaper reading is important, while 833 i.e. 41.65% of these respondents also said that newspaper reading is a habit.

26. It was observed that 91.20% of the respondents replied that outdoor advertising was done by newspapers to promote themselves during the launch period. More than 70% of the respondents also recalled that activities like door to door campaigning, discount schemes, gifts, events and street campaigns were implemented as strategies to promote the newspapers. The research shows that 57.10% of the total respondents think that the subscriptions had a somewhat impact on the leading newspapers at that time.

It was observed that 77.30% of the total respondents are of the opinion that the promotion campaign of Mint failed the most, followed by Hindustan Times. According to the respondents, DNA had the least failure rate with only 36.6% of the total respondents replying that the campaign of DNA failed.

27. It is observed from percentages that the reasons behind the failure of newspapers according to the order are as follows: 1) Newspapers advertising and marketing failed to convey what they would offer to the readers. 2) Newspapers advertising and marketing focused on speaking badly about other newspapers. 3) Over campaigning, too much follow up led to losing interest.

28. In the second phase too, the respondents felt campaign by Mint failed the most with 79.35% failure rate, followed by Hindustan Times at 59.65%. The main reasons behind the failure of the campaign in the second phase were that: 1) The newspaper did not deliver what it had promised in terms of news, article content and quality. 169 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

2) Newspapers advertising and marketing focused on speaking badly about other newspapers.

29. Out of the total respondents, 1879 people felt that The Times of India ranked number 1 in position followed by DNA and then Hindustan Times. As per the respondents feedback to the survey, Indian Express ranked 4'^ in the rankings.

7.2 Findings on the basis of tlie qualitative data: The qualitative data is collected through personal and telephonic interviews with the experts in the field of media, advertising, marketing and strategy. While collecting the data there were certain situations where in the experts either told the researcher to keep the data off the record or keep anonymity. Several findings were very important from the point of view of research. Hence the researcher has decided to include the findings subject to anonymity by maintaining confidentiality. The researcher has included excerpts of the interviews conducted along with the names of the experts whose interviews are conducted.

1. Kumar Ketkar: Mr. Ketkar is a celebrity in the field of media and currently is the managing editor of the f\/larathi newspaper, Loksatta. He has worked in very high positions in several newspapers of Marathi as well as English language.

Mr. Ketkar discussed various issues like the validity of the N RS and IRS figures, importance of the regional language newspapers as compared to the English newspapers and the future of these newspapers in the Internet age. Mr. Ketkar also spoke about the problems arising due to too much commercialisation of the newspapers and what image should newspapers portray.

Mr. Ketkar refused to accept that the N RS and IRS figures are authentic. He said that the NRS and IRS figures which inform the advertisers and other 170 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar involved agencies about the readership facts about various newspapers are manipulated and cannot be accepted.

When asked about the future of newspapers in the Internet age, Mr. Ketkar said that the English newspapers will suffer more and sooner than the regional language newspapers. To support his claim Mr. Ketkar said that people are normally sensitive and emotional towards their own language. All those whose mother tongue is not English will have more affinity towards their own language newspapers and will continue to buy it out of their affection towards their own language. The cost of buying a newspaper all throughout the year is quite cheap compared to the other expenses involved and hence people will keep buying it. Thus, he said, the circulation of regional language newspapers will continue to grow but the readership figures will go down. He said that the same buyer may have a more rational view towards the English newspaper as in that case the decision will not be based on emotions.

Further Mr. Ketkar discussed about the problems arising out of too much commercialisation of newspaper. He said newspapers have a responsibility on their shoulders and should respect that responsibility. He said commercialisation to the extent of accepting advertisements or conducting events is acceptable, however selling news is something which is completely unacceptable. He says it loses the credibility of the newspaper.

2. Sunil Nair: Mr. Nair the Distribution Head for the much coveted Forbes magazine was a part of the Hindustan Times team during the time of its launch. Mr. Nair who has more than 20 years of experience with media groups like Indian Express, Hindustan Times, DNA, and Network 18 explained various strategies and details about the market.

Mr. Nair said that when The Times of India got the news that Hindustan Times and DNA are planning to launch, they immediately took some steps. First, their strategy was that of a leader. To prove this, The Times of India increased the cover price of its newspaper. The Times of India also increased the 171 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar advertising rates in their newspaper. Mr. Nair says that through this strategy The Times of India wanted to convey a message among their readers and advertisers that they were not worried about the competition that was about to enter into the market.

Further Mr. Nair stated that the growth rate of the English newspapers in Mumbai was around 3 to 4% till 2005. When Hindustan Times and DNA were launched almost simultaneously, they planned to achieve circulation target which were unheard of in the newspaper industry. Hindustan Times aimed to achieve a circulation target of approximately 2 lac copies with the subscriber base.

To achieve the target the target, Hindustan Times launched a scheme of Rs. 449, the payment of which was made by cheque. The newspaper returned Rs. 100 to the reader immediately after the cheque was cleared. In this scheme the reader would get the newspaper for a period of one year at no additional cost. Mr. Nair stated that the cheque payment and the refund policy were introduced due to two reasons. One, Hindustan Times did not want any duplication and misuse of the scheme and two, the newspaper wanted to attract more and more readers towards the scheme. The complete process was supported with a back office and teams monitoring the transactions to avoid any misuse.

Mr. Nair claimed that the scheme launched by DNA; Rs. 199 to the individual reader and Rs. 100 to the corporate reader led to a lot of misuse. Asian Age introduced a Re. 1 price but got more fake circulation due to lack of controls.

Hindustan Times, Mr. Nair stated had taken 200 hoardings and had also created great excitement during the launch of the newspaper with many sales promoters meeting people all across the Mumbai city and explaining them about the scheme, interacting with people and collecting cheques.

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Mr. Nair further stated that the ones who benefitted the most from the launch of these newspapers, DNA, Hindustan Times and Mumbai Mirror were the newspaper vendors. The total number of newspaper vendors at the time of launch of DNA, Hindustan Times and Mumbai Mirror were 7000. For an additional 500 vendors they got a new business worth Rs. 33 crores per annum.

Finally Mr. Nair concluded that The Times of India made some real bold moves and implemented their strategy but also benefitted the most. The interview was conducted in May 2010. Mr. Nair at that time stated that the circulation of DNA had increased during the schemes to 3.90 lac copies and Hindustan Times achieved a circulation of 3.5 lac copies during the scheme. However both the newspapers as per his claim had lesser circulation and as per his claim DNA sold around 2.60 to 2.70 lac copies and Hindustan Times sold approximately 2.30 to 2.40 lac copies at the time of the interview.

3. Vijay Kadu: Mr. Kadu was part of the core team that launched DNA in Mumbai. Mr. Kadu was involved in the launch right from the initial stages when the team decided how DNA would be launched in Mumbai and with what objectives to the actual implementation of the strategy. He informed that DNA identified a gap of 15 lacs readers in their research before entering into the market.

Mr. Kadu said that the strategy of DNA to launch a newspaper was to involve the people of Mumbai to make a Newspaper for & by them, thus making them realise their latent need for a good newspaper.

While implementing this strategy they first decided to conduct 98 in-depth interviews to evaluate their strategy and decided to meet all English reading households of Mumbai. Mr. Kadu said that DNA basically wanted to offer a newspaper as per the demands of the people of Mumbai.

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Mr. Kadu further said that both DNA and Hindustan Times aimed for 15-20% of the advertising revenue share of the Rs. 1200 crore market and claim the number 2 position. With this objective in mind DNA offered schemes to attract the readers and separate sections and strong supplements on subjects to retain the readers. DNA Sports and DNA Money with 8 pages each became the strong points of the DNA brand. He explained that DNA After Hrs was purposely undermined due to the strong presence of Bombay Times, part of The Times of India in Mumbai.

He said that as a strategy The Times of India kept deselling as they did not want the advertising share to go to the number 3 and 4. Mr. Kadu said that the most important strategy of The Times of India was to launch Mumbai Mirror to compete for the number 2 position along with DNA and Hindustan Times. He said by offering Mumbai Mirror free of cost to the readers, Mumbai Mirror attained the number 2 position that both DNA and Hindustan Times were aiming for. Due to this strategy by The Times of India, DNA could achieve the number 3 position and get only about 7-8% of the advertising share of the total market.

As per Mr. Kadu’s opinion, the two strong points that are important for the newspapers that launch in the current market scenario are speed and flexibility. He said the speed at which a newspaper achieves targets plays a crucial role as there is no luxury of time.

In response to the question raised about the magazines market, Mr. Kadu said that the newspapers are becoming more and more complete and hence the circulations of magazines are falling down.

In response to the question raised about the increasing number of advertisements in the newspapers, Mr. Kadu said that today 40% of the newspaper is filled with advertisements, however readers do not mind it as even the number of pages and the content offered is a lot.

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Mr. Kadu concluded with two points. One, lie said that he does not believe that HT or DNA did not deliver content as per the expectations of the readers. Secondly, he mentioned that a circulation based newspaper has fewer serious readerships as readers do not normally stop reading their regular newspaper.

4. Jayesh Ashar: Mr. Jayesh Ashar is currently the Vice President of DNA newspaper. He gave various details from the reasons behind launch of a new newspaper in Mumbai to strategies involved in launching the brand. He also spoke about the involvement of various other departments in planning and implementing the strategies of a brand.

Mr. Ashar strongly felt that newspaper is a mind product. It’s a product where the loyalties are extremely high. The best possible way to break this habit is to do sampling. Hence to do the sampling the newly launched newspapers offered discounts.

On the subject of the launch of newspaper in Mumbai he said that it made business sense to launch a newspaper in Mumbai as there was no strong number two newspaper in the city. He said that Indian Express existed but its presence was not strong enough to give tough competition to the leader. Hence both newspapers, DNA and Hindustan Times launched their newspapers in Mumbai, try and acquire a strong number two position in the market.

During launch, Mr. Ashar said, Hindustan Times was a bit overconfident that it would get the targeted circulation figures due to its brand image and strong goodwill in the city of Delhi. This overconfidence Mr. Ashar said brought Hindustan Times in problem. He further added that the umbrella brand of DNA, Dainik Bhaskar is known to be aggressive and has a history in other parts of the country where they have launched the regional newspapers before.

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He said that the strategy of DNA was to offer a new format of newspaper in relation to the sections offered and also be the first English daily to offer all colour pages to its readers. This product strategy along with reduced pricing through attractive subscriptions and several important people to work with DNA, gave the desired success to the newspaper.

In regards to Mumbai Mirror, Mr. Ashar said that The Times of India implemented the flanking strategy. He said The Times Group is famous for using this strategy. With this he meant that The Times Group is known to protect its main flagship brand from competition with some different brand. He said that the strategy has worked for The Times of India brand, however he doubted the commercial success that the Bennett & Coleman Group received due to this.

When asked about the strategy of Hindustan Times to advertise in The Times of India, he said it is completely okay for a newcomer to use the existing leading brand for its own benefit.

He said that both the editorial and circulation departments are highly involved in strategy planning and implementation of the brand. He said the editorial team is given a broader guideline by the management in terms of the segments to be covered by the editorial team like corporate, international, sports and business. Instructions are given so that the readers who are awaiting a new brand can fulfil their expectations from the newly launched newspaper brand. He further added that even the circulation department is involved and is given instructions about the areas to focus on for more subscriptions, sales and visibility. For example, he said the instructions are given by the management to the circulation department to focus on areas where people earning higher incomes reside as these are the areas which if targeted properly, attract advertisers to the newspaper. Thus the focus of management is more on building a brand with all teams involved in it. This also signifies that research plays a crucial role while giving instructions by the management especially to the editorial and circulation departments. 176 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

Finally on the Issue of excessive use of Internet In metros and mini metros, Mr. Ashar said that internet can supplement but never replace newspapers. The main reason he said is that the newspapers have extremely high credibility. Newspaper Is one of those products which the consumers wait to consume, he concluded.

5. Sanjay Pawar: Mr. Sanjay Pawar Is the Associate Vice President of DNA and heads its Pune office. Mr. Pawar discussed about the buying habits of a newspaper. He gave an analogy about why newspaper brands Introduce low pricing while launching their brands In the market. As per his opinion buying a newspaper happens once people see It and read It. Initial discounting is Important as people need some kind of motivation to buy an additional brand of newspaper. Discounts provide that motivation. With prepaid discounted newspaper subscriptions, the readers get the newspaper at their doorstep for a longer period of time. This period of subscription which ranges from three months one or two years gives the reader a regular opportunity to read the new newspaper. The readers can then compare the newspaper with the existing newspaper, get habituated to the newspaper and then take the decision whether to retain either both newspapers or just one of them.

While answering the question, what constitutes a newspaper brand, Mr. Pawar said good packaging of a newspaper is important so that people will be interested to take the copy in their hand the first time. This has to be followed with superior content as the content Is what will retain the reader.

Speaking from the advertiser’s point of view, Mr. Pawar said, while television advertising offers branding opportunities to the advertiser, newspapers offer sales opportunities. Readers are tempted to instantly buy a brand mostly once they read about It in the newspaper advertisement. Hence newspapers play a very crucial role In the economy for the actual sales of available products and services.

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In response to the increasing usage of internet media, Mr. Pawar said that in spite of the internet media and its increasing usage, newspapers will continue to grow. He said people normally don’t prefer to read books or content in the digital format. The percentage of people reading content in digital format is very less. He also said that the credibility of internet is the least. Hence the newspapers will continue to grow. He said newspapers are linked to education and growth. Hence aspiring people will continue to buy newspapers for growth.

On the strategies implemented by Mumbai Mirror, Hindustan Times and DNA, Mr. Pawar said that Mumbai Mirror was launched to block DNA. He said that The Times of India’s sales increased due to several combination packages by the group for its readers. He said The Times gained the same advantage in case of revenues from advertisers.

6, Anand Agasha: Mr. Anand Agashe is a former managing editor of Sakai Group of Publications and headed all the editorial sections of the Group including its Marathi as well as English newspapers and magazines.

Mr. Agashe spoke about the media habits as well as media expectations of readers. He mentioned that the expectations of the readers are increasing day by day, with the ever increasing excessive exposure of various media to the consumers in their various forms as readers, listeners and viewers. There was a time when the newspapers enjoyed monopoly in the market. However the monopolistic positions are now lost, not just due to other newspapers but even due to deep penetration of other media like television and radio. Thus he said the monopolistic position of print is lost even due to the illiterates who can either watch or listen to television and radio.

Mr. Agashe further said that content is becoming more of a commodity today. For any news or information people are not dependant on any particular newspaper. People can obtain news or any information from any other media too. The commoditisation of news has changed the way newspapers played 178 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar their role all these years. He said that the onslaught of other media on print has raised the expectations of the readers from the print. Due to these rising expectations one can see newspapers implementing ideas like more feature articles and knowledge based articles along with news with analysis from experts and its in-house teams.

Mr. Agashe said that commoditisation dilutes the brand but on the other hand the paradox is that to strengthen the brand newspaper organisations need to commoditise the newspaper.

He further elaborated the role of packaging, content and marketing in the newspaper industry and how it has evolved over the last twenty years. He said that from black and white newspapers one can see colour newspapers today with equal focus on visuals compared to the content in the newspapers. Along with this use of updated printing technology is one more addition in delivering excellent packaging of the newspaper. This he also feels is the impact of offering the best to the advertiser along with the reader. On the marketing front he pointed out that the years that changed the way newspaper organisations viewed newspapers was in the late eighties and early nineties. These were the years when Mr. Sameer Jain of The Times of India Group brought about several changes in the newspaper product and also the way the newspaper was marketed. Due to this, Mr. Agashe said the perspective of editorial departments in newspapers changed. He also points out that the perspective of the marketing departments in the newspaper organisations is yet to change. Mr. Agashe said that the Brand Manager of a newspaper organisation is not just an individual role or a responsibility any more but has become a team work. People who are not related to the brand team are also required to represent the brand and carry its image. He said that this role cannot be performed by just one person in a newspaper organisation anymore.

In reference to the differences between regional language newspapers and English newspapers, Mr. Agashe said that the circulation of regional language 179 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar newspapers will further increase in the coming ten years. To support his point he said that the literacy rate in cities as well as rural parts of India will increase; people will be more educated, leading to more employment and thus more purchasing power. This increase in purchasing power will lead to the growth in the circulation of regional language newspapers.

Mr. Agashe also argued that the newspaper brands are focusing too much on profits and revenues nowadays. He said that if the focus is so much on profits, then the newspaper organisations should look at their work only as a profit making business activity and stop enjoying all the benefits of the fourth estate.

Finally Mr. Agashe said that for sustainability Voice of Customer is going to be of supreme importance. For sustainability newspaper organisations will have to focus only on what their readers expect. This will retain and increase the circulation figures, thus keeping the readers as well as the advertisers attracted to the newspaper.

7. Shyama Datta: Mrs. Shyama Dutta is a brand consultant and faculty to several educational institutes, specialising in branding and advertising. Mrs. Dutta discussed various important subjects like product analysis, product strategy, the media convergence and the impact of convergence on the readers.

On the strategy implemented by Hindustan Times to advertise in The Times of India, she said it was a fatal flaw. She said that both newspapers have similar audiences. As per her opinion Hindustan Times failed to perform a proper product analysis of their own produce due to which they did this. She elaborated that the product analysis to media consumption pattern analysis failed. As per her opinion this conveyed a negative image in the minds of the prospective readers of Hindustan Times and The Times of India became a clear winner.

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Her explanation to the description of strategies implemented by the Bennett & Coleman Group is that while on one side The Times of India doubled and diversified its content with several options like supplements they also launched Mumbai Mirror to avoid competition. The Times then branded these supplements like Ascent and Times Property, which was beneficial to the advertisers for a better response as well as the newspaper in terms of added revenues.

On the issue of content, she said that the young readers do not want to read the mainline newspapers. They are very focused on what their subject of interest is and hence subject oriented supplements work. She said the focus in newspapers has to be glocal in nature. Her glocal word is a combination of global and local. She meant that the content should be both global plus local. The global content is required but should also inform the readers of its local implications to make the news important for the readers here.

When asked whether the newspapers are becoming more advertisers focused Mrs. Dutta felt they are and that as a reader she felt cynicism. She felt the readers may not be so happy about too much of advertising. However as an advertising professional she said that this strategy is multi-fold. She said that due to this advertisers benefit and at the same time readers also get the newspapers at a cheaper price, which otherwise they would not.

She further added though that the problem of paid news seems to be increasing and most of the time the readers can differentiate between paid news and real news. She says if the paid news starts increasing the readers may not accept it.

In response to the future of the industry she said that in about ten years from now the newspapers will change to tablet sizes, even more reader oriented, with more content that has a blend of local and global issues and more subject oriented. She said that community tablets will grow. As per her opinion the future will show the readers showing more interest in analysis of news.

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She also referred to citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is where the citizens participate in providing news and content to the newspapers, news channels or internet portals. She said that the trend already shows many citizens actively participating in delivering content to the media and that the citizen journalism will grow in the future. She felt that this has started happening due to the social networking sites like Face book and Twitter wherein the people started getting a platform to express them. Social networking sites are web portals where people get free memberships and can connect online with their friends, business associates and others.

Finally she said that for the optimal success of newspaper content is the most important factor. The content she felt should be such that understands and relates with the reader. She said good content always finds a reader.

8. Ramesh Bhide: Mr. Ramesh Bhide has been in sales and marketing for over thirty years, and has an experience of working with several multinational brands from US, Europe and India. Some of his responsibilities included planning and executing strategies for the growth and diversification of brands and launching new brands in the market. He was also actively involved in preparing and executing promotion strategies of various brands.

Mr. Bhide related the growth with the reforms during the 1991 liberalisation policy. He said that the actual growth started from 1991 although people started progressing rapidly a few years after that. He felt that considering these aspects, new newspapers could have been launched in Mumbai in the late nineties. He felt that the companies waited for too long before launching their newspapers in Mumbai and The Times of India thus got a long time to strengthen its position in the booming economy. Another reason why the newspapers could have been launched during the late nineties is that this was the time when a lot of working and educated population from other states started come to Mumbai.

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On the topic of brand strategies Mr. Bhide said the name of a brand is very important for its success. The name DNA was very innovative, short and easy to say and remember. The name had to connotations, one DNA of a human being, something which DNA emphasised in the launch campaign and the fact that the name stands for Daily News SAnalysis. He said the name created a deep impact in the minds of people. Due to this name and that they used it appropriately in their advertising campaigns; market penetration became much easier for DNA. He said having a good name for the newspaper was very important for DNA because they did not have any history. The newspaper was completely new and it is difficult to accept a newspaper which has no history. The reason behind this he said is that a newspaper is not just any other business but a responsibility, which people trust and follow. He said that the positioning of each brand also had a significant contribution in its success. The Times of India, he said was always known to be pro­ government even in 2005, DNA positioned themselves as a newspaper with Daily News and Analysis, focusing on analysis of news, Hindustan Times spoke about projecting the people of Mumbai in a new light and Mumbai Mirror positioned themselves as a newspaper for the youth and a newspaper designed by the people. Mr. Bhide also added that in spite of this positioning all newspapers focused mostly on the reduced prices and subscription offers to get maximum subscriptions. He felt that the newspapers should have focused more on creating a distinctive position rather than pricing.

He said that while The Times of India and DNA succeeded more among the cosmopolitans and Gujarati plus the floating population respectively, Hindustan Times succeeded more among the northerners.

Mr. Bhide listed out the reasons for the success of The Times of India. He said one important reason is that The Times branded themselves properly. They even branded all their supplements and regular columns like the Speaking Tree, which made people, read them loyally. He felt the best part was that they even branded a page. Page 3, to the extent that it became a super hit movie, thus adding many more loyalists to the page, eventually the 183 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar newspaper. Thus the loyalty with The Times of India increased not just with the newspaper but even with regular columns and supplements. The effect of all this was that the advertisers benefitted.

When asked if the internet would replace newspapers he said it is not possible. He felt the newspapers will evolve over the years but will not become obsolete.

Mr. Bhide said that for optimum success a newspaper brand should follow certain principles, have honest reporting, a great mission and vision, should touch various aspects of human life, must deliver witty, humorous and understandable reportage, follow issues till the conclusions and finally that the corruption in reporting must be eradicated completely.

9. Vijay Thombare: Mr. Vijay Thombare is associated with media and advertising since three decades and worked with several leading newspapers and even owned an advertising agency. He mentioned that there is a change in the perception towards the media today. People use various media tools for various purposes. People, especially from metropolitan cities do not depend only a single media tool for information.

He said that the hand held media like the mobile is for being informed. People read the print for serious news while at television for glamour. He said it is very important to see how brands will take shape in this scenario. He gave an example of the renowned and leading group of India, Tata. Mr. Thombare said Tata has not remained a boring brand because of the regularity in new models and acquisitions. Similarly he felt the media organisations too should focus on diversity, offering new to the users at regular intervals and work on removing the boredom of using the same product in the same way years after years.

His example could be compared with The Times of India Group which has continuously come up with new products with different brand names under its 184 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

Bennett & Coleman Company. Today the Group has on a regular basis brought about changes in The Times of India, like Bombay Times and Times Ascent, launched new newspapers like Mumbai Mirror, ventured into other media like television, radio and Internet and acquired other newspapers like Vijay Karnataka from Karnataka. The Bennett & Coleman Group is the biggest media brand in India today.

Further Mr. Thombare noted that The Times of India is associated with styling but DNA is more youthful. However he also noted that especially in the newspaper industry youthful means non-credible.

10. Milind Kokje: Mr. Milind Kokje has experience of three media; newspaper, television and Internet. He has worked for The Times of India, headed Zee News (Marathi), and has been the editor of www.maharashtratimes.com.

From his experience with Bennett & Coleman Group, Mr. Kokje explains various key points like the leadership in Bennett & Coleman Group, how the change in the leadership brought about changes from within the organisation and that too at all levels in every possible way and finally how it helped the organisation.

Mr. Kokje stated that the Managing Director of the Group, Mr. Sameer Jain fully understands the value of the brand and also how readership changes. He said that after Mr. Sameer Jain took over the Group he brought about several changes that eventually helped the Group.

He said that Mr. Sameer Jain introduced computerisation in phases. Mr. Jain brought a breakthrough from the worker unions by contracts. Mr. Kokje said Mr. Jain also brought about a major positive change which actually changed the way people looked towards the newspaper industry. Mr. Jain shifted the control of the newspaper from the journalists to the brand managers. Further, Mr. Jain increased the advertising rates in The Times of India by 50% and 185 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar even succeeded in his strategy. He said that Mr. Jain focused on some things regularly. He believed in winning over competition, increasing the brand value and continuous advertising. Mr. Jain also implemented several marketing strategies in circulation of the newspaper. He feels that the one of the best things offered by the top management is ample time for preparation before introducing anything.

Mr. Kokje explains with a chart shown in figure 7.1 several points that he feels have led to the success of the Bennett & Coleman Group.

Figure 7.1: Success factors of the BCCL Group as perceived by Mr. Kokje Source: As explained by the respondent

186 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

11. Sunanda Mehta: Mrs. Sunanda Mehta is the editor of Indian Express Pune. She has a vast experience of journalisnn and spoke about various aspects in terms of involvement of journalists in branding, current commercialisation of newspapers, how editors plan the launch of a new newspaper or an existing newspaper in a new market, her reaction to the internet media as well as citizen journalism and the optimal success factors for a newspaper. Mrs. Mehta said that most of the newspapers are getting very commercial nowadays and the difference is becoming more and more obvious to everyone. However she said that even the readers are getting more and more educated in terms of understanding of such issues, the readers are becoming aware of such type of news and its consequences. Due to this she said, the vision of the readers is becoming clearer, and eventually the readers will be able to choose by making a clear distinction. Currently she said these issues are overlapping and hence it will take time for readers to get a clear view of who is publishing unbiased news.

On the question of how the editors are getting involved in the brand strategy of a newspaper, she said that Indian Express has its own branding team and the editorial department is not involved in it. Upon further questioning, she said the editors role in branding is only limited to the editorial responsibilities like attending events, functions, launch and other activities where the editorial team is really required. She said all public appearances of the editor are viewed only through the parameter of news.

The editors Mrs. Mehta said have a clear strategy while launching the newspaper in a new location. They are clear on the philosophy of the organisation or the reason to launch a newspaper, the target market, the USP of the newspaper, be investigative and offer content that involves the readers.

When asked if an editor’s role is changing due to the changing expectations of the readers, Mrs. Mehta said she doesn’t feel so. The editor’s role is the same however due to media convergence the visibility of editors is increasing. 187 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

The editors of newspapers are even seen on television based on the partnerships of their newspapers with television channels.

She added that the internet has great reach compared to print. For example a person sitting in any other country can read a newspaper printed in India. However in spite of this the sales of newspapers would not be affected. She felt that each medium has its own importance and will remain. Although she did mention that the formats of newspapers will change, for example easy to read versions may start.

Her views on citizen journalism were very positive. She said that all these years the newspaper organisations had may be 20 journalists on field, but due to citizen journalism and increasing awareness the newspapers have 20000 journalists on the streets. However she said that in this case it is also important to see if the citizen journalists do not have any hidden agendas or personal gains through it.

Finally she said, for the optimal success of a newspaper, good content plus good marketing, both are equally important. If the content is not good the newspaper may not get consistent sales, and if the marketing is not good the newspaper may not get the initial sales too. Hence both the roles; one of bringing out a good quality newspaper and even marketing the newspaper well need to be planned and executed properly she concluded.

12. Dilip Sarawate: Mr. Dilip Sarawate is a leading marketing consultant and academician in the field of marketing.

Mr. Sarawate discussed on how a newspaper product needs to be launched. He related the topic to theory while addressing the eight steps from concept to commercialisation and said the newspaper industry too has to go through all these steps. However in case of test marketing, the newspaper cannot actually do test marketing but can do sampling of the newspaper to a large extent. He said other products have the liberty to test market a product. He 188 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar gave the example of nose strips that can be used while sleeping and said although these strips were advertised on television they were available only in certain pockets of Mumbai initially. The response was tested before the commercialisation of the brand.

He said the newspapers do not have such liberty and have to do a lot of research before launching the newspaper and then experiment while the newspaper is available in the market. He further added that this is the reason why the newspapers have to be extra cautious while launching in any market.

13. Jitendra Kalaskar: Mr. Jitendra Kalaskar is the Creative Art Director in one of the leading advertising agencies in India, Lowe Lintas. He expressed his views on the product strategy of newspapers in terms their design, layout and fonts used and how readers perceive these aspects of the product. As per his opinion The Times of India has more text compared to the visuals. He said the readers of The Times of India prefer to read a lot and hence the newspaper delivered it. He discussed the reader of The Times in detail, saying that The Times has many traditional readers and not just the new generation readers. These are people who have an almost 100 year tradition of reading The Times of India in their house. These readers have always preferred to read more than just see. To cater to these audience The Times has always focussed on great writers, thinkers, celebrities and analysts to write for their newspaper. It was very difficult to break the reading habits of these traditional readers. He referred to the Parsi community as The Times of India loyalist traditional readers. On the other hand he said that DNA has focused on big visuals right from the time of its launch. He said that DNA is a visually oriented newspaper, which believes in expressing through photo ournalism, photos with extreme human oriented ideation. He said that the layout of DNA is very trendy with all colour pages and has a nice look and feel. He said that as a product DNA is a star.

He felt that it may be strategy mistake on the part of DNA that they did not capitalise their umbrella brands Zee and Dainik Bhaskar. 189 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

He felt as a strategy newly launched newspapers can also try premium pricing to make their presence felt. His point however contradicts the price cut strategy adopted by all leading brands across India. He said strategy pricing as well as structure of the organisation are two very important factors to successfully run a newspaper. If one part of the newspaper organisation’s strategy is implemented by the competition or even if some key people like feature writers, columnists, or management shift to the competition, it does not make any difference to the newspaper organisation. He said that for the optimal success of a newspaper, the newspaper should represent the society and for this the newspaper should go with the society. He said that the newspapers should tap and adapt the local culture and bring active society participation through social programs and participative promotions which are specific to the currently observed nuclear family culture in cities.

On the point of increasing use of internet among the younger generation as well as people among various age groups in metros, he said this factor will not affect the circulations of newspapers. People will keep buying and reading newspapers. He further said that internet can be used as a bridge by the newspaper brands to make people buy and read the newspapers. He said interesting stories could be half published on internet thus provoking people to buy the newspaper for further reading. He adds that we are human beings and not machines. Human beings are prone to be attracted with senses like touch and smell. He said that when people claim that reading a specific newspaper is a habit, it is not just the contents of the newspaper. He said that the touch of the newsprint that is the paper used to print newspapers and the smell of the ink used to print a newspaper are also some of the factors which people are habituated to. Hence he feels it is wrong to say that the newspaper will be extinct or will lose their importance due to the excessive use of internet.

Mr. Kalaskar makes an interesting remark that in terms of usage of font, the size of the font will gradually become big with the growing use of internet. He 190 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar sees this as a possible prominent change in the newspaper printing in the years to come.

He also focused on the aspect of area centric newspapers. These newspapers, he said are the need of the advertiser not the content. The advertisers can easily reach the target audience in a much lower cost. Due to this the importance of area centric newspapers will increase from the local advertiser’s perspective. He also pointed out that the circulation of newspapers depends on the kind of its content. He gave an example that while newspapers like The Times of India would be read by people in cities, offices and homes as their social status would be elevated, the frivolous newspapers with more content like violence and crime will be read during travel as there is no one to see them while reading such newspapers.

14. Sanjay Ranade: Mr. Ranade has several years of experience in the media industry, working for The Times of India and now is in the academic career as a faculty and ex chair person of the department of mass communication at Mumbai University.

Mr. Ranade made his observations on the circulation details of both Hindustan Times and DNA and also pointed out a few details about other newspapers like Mid Day. He also spoke about what kind of changes the newspaper industry would go through in the years to come.

Mr. Ranade said the background of both newspapers, Hindustan Times as well as DNA is quite different. While Hindustan Times has been the leading newspaper in Delhi, DNA does not have any background of running an English newspaper. DNA comes from a background of a joint venture of two companies; a television company and a regional language newspaper. Due to this their ideologies are somewhat different.

He said that both newspapers although from different backgrounds, are aiming to maintain their images as a newspaper of Mumbai city. In spite of 191 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar this, he says that the circulation of Hindustan Times is more in areas where people from Delhi have settled, while DNA has more circulation in pockets with higher Guajarati population.

While giving an example of Mid Day he explained how a newspaper needs to understand the need of the readers, and offer something to the readers after identifying the right gap.

To explain his point he stated that the reason why Mid Day has such a high circulation is because they have perfectly tapped the commuting class of Mumbai. He said that lacs of people commute throughout the day in Mumbai city. Most of them commute in local trains and buses where space is too less. At the same time the distances and time required to travel is a lot. The best way to utilise this time would be to read.

Mid Day rightly understood this and offered the newspaper as an afternoon paper, so people have something new to read other than the morning newspaper. The size too is such that people can still easily read it in busy buses and trains. Mr. Ranade said that the newspaper industry is yet to see many changes. The newspaper industry he said would be dominated with several mergers and takeovers in the years to come.

15. Mangesh Karandikar: Mr. Mangesh Karandikar is currently the chairperson of the Department of Mass Communications at the Mumbai University.

In response to the launched newspapers and the English newspaper industry in Mumbai he said, Mumbai has a very large population that commutes to and from Mumbai every day. Apart from this a large population also belongs to the middle class and The Times of India does not own both these category of readers. Mr. Karandikar said that DNA was launched to cater to this population which was neglected by The Times of India. 192 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

He further said that DNA also launched to cater to the youth population which had less affinity towards The Times of India. The Bennett & Coleman Group however launched Mumbai Mirror and gained popularity and high level of acceptance in the youth category.

He added that it was inevitable for the newly launched newspapers to offer discounted prices and low-priced subscriptions as this is the best possible available solution to attract the readers to a newly launched newspaper.

Finally Mr. Karandikar said good quality and variety of content is very crucial for the successful and consistent success of any newspaper.

16. Corina Manuel: Ms. Manuel spoke on various issues of the newspaper and the magazine industry like content, advertising, circulation as well as marketing. Ms. Manuel said that newspapers are now focusing a lot on feature writing than just offering news to the readers. She said even magazines have started changing their style in terms of content and design and are focusing more to the television audience who is interested more in visual orientation thus involving photographers and visual editors to a great extent. She said that she observes a similar trend even in the newspaper industry. She said that internet and television can never completely replace the print medium however it will force the print medium to change its form. She also pointed out that in the current scenario the magazines are facing tremendous competition from newspapers as the newspapers are rapidly changing their formats and offering the contents of magazines too.

Ms. Manuel said that launching a newspaper in Mumbai is more specifically for getting a share from the largest advertising market in India. She said that Mumbai is a large metropolitan city compared to other cities in India and has a large audience base with an even larger diversity in population. Thus launching an English newspaper in Mumbai becomes a worthwhile proposal.

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However she said that the real press of India is the regional press and that is where the real competition is from.

Ms. Manuel also said integration of various media like print, internet and radio can prove to be a useful integration from the reader’s perspective. Branding she said has become important in today’s competitive era but the most important aspect of a newspaper remains content. She specified that if the content is not good, no matter how good the packaging is, it will not sustain the newspaper in the market. •

She further added that advertising expenses to the advertiser have increased and hence the print media is doing a lot of events to offer more to the advertiser. She also added that advertising in newspapers is about achieving sales for the advertiser while advertising in magazines is about branding. To support her statement she said that the life of a magazine is a lot more than that of a newspaper. Magazines can be found in parlours, hotel rooms, on coffee tables and other places even after the end of their period. The articles and issues covered in magazines may not necessarily have an expiry as they may have in newspapers and hence reading an old magazine does not make any difference to the reader. Thus she said advertising that helps brand building are found more in magazines than in newspapers.

Ms. Manuel finally said that we are living in the times of instant gratification. Hence newspapers too have to offer something to the reader that gives them a feeling of instant gratification.

17. Jitendra Dixit: Mr. Jitendra Dixit is a senior correspondent at Star News Hindi channel. Mr. Dixit discussed how newspapers differ from television channels as products but the importance of both media.

Mr. Dixit said that the television medium is extremely fast and involves even faster reporting. In television medium he said there is extreme importance given to the concept of breaking news as that is what attracts the viewers. 194 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

However he said that the same is not the case with newspapers. In the newspaper industry people have a certain amount of time available to analyse the news, understand the significance of it and then report it. The concept of breaking news exists in the newspaper industry too, but only in certain cases that is called investigative journalism. In television news has to be telecast in the fastest possible time.

Due to this he said the current trend shows that newspapers publish news with a great analysis and this is what makes the newspapers attractive. Although the newspapers cannot deliver videos of the actual scene still the elaborative concept of newspapers gives them the desired results from the readers. He also added that newspapers are now changing even in the way they present their news. For example he said the news involves many photos which bring life to news and people can then visualise what actually may have happened. With most of the newspapers shifting to colour pages and colour photos in them, the newspapers are becoming very attractive in layouts and design too, he added.

18. Kaushal Inamdar: Mr. Kaushal Inamdar from Mumbai is one of the renowned music directors and has given music to several films and serials on Indian television. He is also a renowned writer and writes articles for several leading newspapers. He expressed his views on the content currently published in newspapers and how they need to differentiate. He said certain leading newspapers are becoming very unbiased and commercial in nature. Due to this the very culture of the city is wrongly projected finally resulting in wrong messages being spread among the readers of such newspapers. As newspaper organisations, he felt they should be more responsible to what they are offering to their readers and not just focus on profits and higher circulation figures. He said that the newspapers cannot neglect the basic reason why they exist. He added that newspapers are meant to represent the community in the city and not just a part of the community.

195 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

On the subject of discounted pricing and subscriptions he said, many people are attracted just due to the scrap value of the newspaper and not because the content that is made available by the newspaper.

19. Manish Khadilkar: Mr. Manish Khadilkar has worked with the media industry for almost two decades. His has experience with Hindustan Times, Indian Express and the Sakai Group of Publications. During his career in media he has been a part of the launch teams that have launched Agrowan, the world’s first daily newspaper dedicated to agriculture, English newspaper Sakai Times, Saam TV, a Marathi Entertainment channel and re-launched an English newspaper, Maharashtra Herald. In all these media organisations, he has also worked in the sales department.

Mr. Khadilkar said in case of space selling, if the newspaper has a strong brand name it always helps to sell. Space selling is a concept which means selling, the space in the newspapers to the advertisers for the purpose of advertising. He said stronger the brand name of the newspaper better it is to sell the space. However he adds that it is also very important that the seller knows his and the competitors products and product range very well. This means the seller should know the complete details of the newspaper if he wants to sell the space in it.

He further added that The Times of India is a very strong brand in India today, with a legacy of more than 100 years. Indian Express too is a very strong brand in journalism; however the internal split in the group has definitely caused harm to the Indian Express as a brand. Indian Express can no more present itself as a strong national brand to the advertisers in comparison with The Times of India. Thus he said, if the brand has a strong nationwide presence then it certainly helps to create an impact in the minds of the readers and advertisers and also to earn more revenues. He said that such strong presence can even help the brand earn a premium which the competitors cannot.

196 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

Mr. Khadilkar further said that the diversifications by the Bennett & Coleman Group like the diversifications in radio, television, Internet, outdoor, regional language newspapers and magazines, all helped in consolidating the brand and making it even stronger to sell space in each form of media made available by them.

He further said that the discounted pricing and subscriptions are merely strategies implemented to gain more circulation and ultimately attract the advertisers.

Hindustan Times, he said was a very conservative brand till the year 2000. He meant that the organisation was not very keen on expanding, although it had been planning to expand to Mumbai since several years. Another factor that led to him concluding that the organisation was very conservative was the way it functioned. He said that the organisation functioned in a very bureaucratic manner till about 2000. Due to this conservative attitude the brand’s growth was very restricted. However due to The Times of India as a competition, the group had to eventually change. He thus felt that the policies of the top management play a very crucial role in the growth and image of the brand in the minds of people. He also felt that a strong competitor can ultimately instigate growth in an organisation.

He felt that two things of The Times of India that help the brand especially while launching in any new city or launching any new brand are the money power and patience.

He said that the newspaper organisations nowadays perform a lot of activities which help the promotion and recall of the brand. He mentions two examples to support his statement. One example is when The Times of India announced that it would offer gifts to people on roads, at signals or any other public places if they found anyone carrying a copy of The Times in their hand. Second example is when Hindustan Times came up with a promotional scheme in Delhi that said it would knock on people’s doors at their residences 197 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar and would offer them instant gifts lil

In regards to the technological changes and advancements, Mr. Khadilkar was of the opinion that it is due to these rapid changes in technology and also in the acceptance of media in other forms that one can see the media organisations transforming into multimedia organisations.

Mr. Khadilkar said it is very crucial to understand how an organisation wants to launch a newspaper, the reason being that the newspaper is just a one among many kind of product and also probably the only product which is sold below cost price. He said that the objectives to launch a newspaper and the target market should be studied thoroughly as this is one product where you cannot cut down the number of products sold per day or the number of days the product is sold and reduction in either would result in hampering the brand.

20. Dr. Shrikant Patankar: Dr. Shrikant Patankar, who is a doctorate in rural marketing, is the President of Garware Motors, India. He has a diverse background including an experience in media wherein he headed a team that launched Sakai Times in Pune.

In response to the question about the justification of the expenses made by the newspaper organisations to launch their respective brands, he said that such expenses are completely justifiable as promotional expenses have become extremely expensive now. He said even in a city like Pune, Sakai Times spent an amount of around Rs. 3.5 crore for its launch, with about Rs. 2 crore in the first two months. He said the expenses like hoardings cost, the printing material, other outdoor media like transport buses all have become extremely expensive, thus making it inevitable to spend such huge amount of money. After all, he said the newspaper is a product which does business in 198 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar crores too, it is a product which is expected to be read by lacs of people right from the first day. On the issue of Hindustan Times advertising in The Times of India, he felt that there is no correlation between the two brands and the strategy implemented by Hindustan Times. This strategy he said should be viewed as a way adopted by Hindustan Times to reach its target audience. In regards to the infiltration of the internet media, he said people will use internet media more than newspapers in the years to come but not because of the price factor but due to the time constraint that readers face every day. Over a period of time after about 10 years the print form of newspapers may even implement a free for all strategy, he felt. He strongly felt that even today 50% of the circulation is advertiser focused, just because advertising departments of newspaper organisations need those figures.

Dr. Patankar said that the brand strategies are critical in the sense that they primarily address three important issues especially in case of launch of newspaper brands. One is the area that is the target audience, second is the number of copies by which a newspaper organisation can achieve a break even along with an advertising income and third is the available budget for the launch.

When he was asked why the communication of newspaper brands through advertising is different from communication by sales promoters who sell subscriptions to households, he said the main reason is that lack of training to the promoters. The promoters are not trained properly or by professionals he admitted. He felt this again goes back to the intent of management and the budget they allot for training.

He further added that the readers buy a new newspaper because it appeals to the readers. The readers need to feel that they need an additional newspaper while buying it.

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Finally he said that a newspaper is not just an editor’s product anymore. The management plays a crucial role in planning for the newspaper, planning that would help achieve the objectives of the newspaper brand. Departments like advertising, editorial and circulation work along with each other and there is a lot of communication that happens internally which ultimately helps the brand.

21. Parag Karandikar: Mr. Parag Karandikar is the resident editor of Maharashtra Times, Pune. He discussed about newspaper as a product and the strategies implemented by the newspaper brands to sustain and grow in the market. He said a newspaper was always looked as a communication tool. The first newspaper to identify and offer what people required was Sakai, a Marathi newspaper from Pune. The owner and editor of Sakai, Late Mr. Nanasaheb Parulekar said a newspaper should offer everything that people need.

He said a newspaper is launched once a gap and potential is identified. Before Maharashtra Times was launched in Pune, they identified a joint circulation of Sakai along with The Times of India. This circulation of 1.20 lac copies was the potential circulation available for Maharashtra Times. At the same time the focus was to deliver a different newspaper, a newspaper which was not offered to the readers before. The more aspiring and youth reader was identified. The age group of these readers was from the age group of 18 to 35 years. The attitude of this youth reader is that of a winner. These readers are very aspiring in nature and more focused towards career and holistic growth. To cater to this category of readers weekend supplements were introduced. These supplements are more career and education oriented and support the holistic growth to the reader, Mr. Karandikar said.

Mr. Karandikar further said that to keep the brand strong and fresh in the minds of the readers it is important that it repositions itself on a regular basis. There has to be some fine tuning more frequently to adapt to the tastes and preferences of its readers. Introduction to new columns and articles, writers are what keep the readers glued to the newspaper. Mr. Karandikar further

2 0 0 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar added that the new newspapers should focus on offering something new and different and not copy the existing leaders.

Mr. Karandikar finally added that the editors of newspapers are now becoming brand conscious and are contributing in their own way from the editorial perspective to grow the brand.

22. Sanjay Savarkar: Mr. Sanjay Savarkar has a total media experience of almost three decades and has worked for several Indian and International English newspaper organisations like Indian Express, Khaleej Times, Business Standard, and Sakai Times.

Mr. Savarkar discussed about the newspapers as a product and how their product portfolio impacts the brand. He also discussed the attributes of various newspaper brands and strategies of various newspaper organisations. He said that the focus on the flagship brand is the dominant factor while launching along with other factors like the advertising spends by advertisers in that city and the spending patterns.

Mr. Savarkar added that the content profile for the target audience is also important strategy. He explained this point by saying that The Times of India has a legacy and its content is more in depth and with an impact. On the other hand, Mumbai Mirror believes in “news for the day” concept. The content in Mumbai Mirror is as per the requirements of the commuting people in Mumbai, the youth and thus reflects the speed culture of Mumbai. He further said that the strategy to launch Mumbai Mirror is absolutely unemotional. The newspaper was offered free to gain readership, launched to block the new entrants that is Hindustan Times and DNA, was promoted with tremendous noise that attracted the potential readers, maintained its differentiation through size, overall packaging, and content and target audience and still had the Group’s synergy. All this he felt are strategies implemented with an objective of taking The Times Group that is the Bennett & Coleman Group in a monopolistic situation. He added that The Times Group has been known to 201 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar implement strategies like buying titles of other publications and flanking, means creating barriers to keep the flagship brand The Times of India safe from all competition. He gave an example which he perceived as a flanking strategy by The Times Group. He said that approximately in 1988 when the first premium newspaper called Indian Post, was launched by Singhania Group, The Times of India launched a similar newspaper called The Independent. This he said led to a competition between The Independent and Indian Post and The Times of India was away from this competition. Eventually he said, soon after Indian Post closed down, The Independent too was closed by The Times Group.

Mr. Savarkar further said that about 20 years back the planning to launch a new newspaper or a new edition of an existing newspaper was involved more of a macro level strategy. The thought process included ideas like increasing the coverage of the newspaper and news. Once the electronic medium started growing, the speed of communication increased tremendously. He said it was after the coverage by CNN during the Gulf War that the media in India started thinking about increasing the coverage very seriously. Concepts like in depth and analytical reporting, 360° reporting started to grow after this. 360° reporting is a concept wherein a media organisation covers news from all possible perspectives.

When asked about the comparison between the newspaper organisations in India and abroad, he said the main difference is in the commitment towards the process that has been defined. His experience is that Indian organisations lack in committing themselves to the process that they themselves have outlined.

In response to the question about the increasing use of Internet among metropolitan and mini-metro cities, Mr. Savarkar said that according to a Global Readership Survey, the newspaper readership in its print form among the Asian countries like India will be preserved due to its conservative approach. 202 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

Finally he said the commitment of the editors of the previous years was exceptional and the social objectives very clear. However due to the increasing inflow of information and a continuous demand to offer more value added information in terms of subject oriented features and articles and experts advice, the editors have to perform a role of an excellent content manager today. Thus, he said the roles of editors are changing.

23. Abhay Kardeguddi: Mr. Abhay Kardeguddi is a marketing consultant to several B2B and B2C companies. He is also extensively involved in research and education.

Mr. Kardeguddi discussed and debated over several issues like the strategies of the Bennett & Coleman Group, the convergence of media, expenses by media brands over product launches, importance of newspapers in the age of internet and the success factors of a newspaper in the current scenario.

Mr. Kardeguddi said that the timing of launch of DNA and Hindustan Times is quite acceptable. He added that The Times of India was the undisputed leader in the Mumbai market and enjoyed monopoly in the most important city in terms of advertising revenues. To break the monopoly of The Times, DNA and Hindustan Times entered into the market. He stated that as per the noted journalist from South India, P. Sainath of Hindu newspaper, consumers should encourage competition. He further added that media convergence is taking place very rapidly and hence an additional media tool like a new newspaper is a definite welcome strategy. However at the same time too much clutter of competition does not lead to growth. Clutter would lose the potential of true growth of the market.

Mr. Kardeguddi said that The Times of India knew that they could not be complacent anymore. The Times Group therefore adapted a great strategy by launching Mumbai Mirror to diffuse the frontal attack from DNA and Hindustan Times. Due to this strategy both DNA and Hindustan Times got engaged in 203 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar competition with Mumbai Mirror. He added that accepting the ads of Hindustan Times in The Times of India was an even better strategy, as with this The Times conveyed an indirect message to the readers of The Times and people from Mumbai that the competition of Hindustan Times was not with The Times of India.

In response to the advertising budgets by the newly launched newspapers he had two opinions. As a reader he said, he viewed the expenses negatively; however as a consultant in marketing he felt that the expenses were quite justified. He said, to break the monopoly of The Times of India and to achieve a commendable number two position, the competition had to launch their respective brands with full energy.

Mr. Kardeguddi further stated that five to ten years from now the value of newspapers will not have diminished due to the digital media, although the percentage of people reading the print version may vary. He said that even the type of content will eventually change a change which has already started taking place. He said that the content will change from news to news analysis also addressing the socio cultural issues to a great extent.

He added that if newspapers focus too much on commercialisation by making it too much advertiser oriented, the product value that is the deliverable quality will eventually go down. This finally will result in the advertiser moving away from the newspaper brand.

He concluded by saying that the success factors for a newspaper would be publishing unbiased news, in-depth analysis, integrity, connectedness with various happenings in the society and design & layout which are convenient and user friendly.

24. Abhay Kulkarni: Mr. Abhay Kulkarni has a vast experience of more than two decades in the newspaper industry. He was the editor of Sakai Papers Limited, Pune and managed all editions of Sakai newspaper. Mr. Kulkarni 204 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar spoke in detail about his perceptions towards the strategies implemented by the newspapers in Mumbai. Mr. Kulkarni categorically pointed out the strategies from the perspective of an editor as well as the management of the newspaper organisation.

Mr. Kulkarni said that revenue generation is a very important point and one of the major concerns of revenue generation is resources. Mumbai has abundant resources and scope of revenue generation. Hence the newspaper organisations concluded Mumbai as the obvious location.

Further he stated that people are influenced by language and culture. Mumbai has a huge cosmopolitan population, people who have come from various cultural and language backgrounds. To reach these readers, English seemed a common platform.

He then stated that The Times of India always appealed to the elite community. The Times of India was always looked at as a newspaper which catered to the most affluent class of people from Mumbai. Indian Express was always perceived as a very serious newspaper. There was a big gap, which constituted of the youth as well as the common middle class families. DNA and Hindustan Times identified this gap and launched the newspaper in Mumbai. The Times of India had no connection with this class of people. To target this class and to counter the strategy of DNA and Hindustan Times, The Times of India launched Mumbai Mirror. The Times of India had a “snob value” which Mumbai Mirror did not. Mr. Kulkarni elaborated the point of “snob value” by saying that the readers of Times felt prestigious to read that newspaper brand. He said The Times has a kingly image, while Mumbai Mirror has a youth image. Thus The Times could retain its positioning in the market, cater to its own readers, and also consolidate their position with Mumbai Mirror, thus catering to the class it had not catered to before. He said that the Bennett & Coleman Group further adapted the consolidation strategy by launching a string of television channels, starting with Zoom TV.

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On the point of editors being the face of the newspaper brands and also with their individual brand image, Mr. Kulkarni said that any newspaper organisation has three captains; Editor, Circulation Head and the Advertising Head. In these three the editor is known as the captain’s captain as he has a greater responsibility, that of maintaining and continuously upgrading the product quality. He further added that there was a time when the editors had to manage a single edition, however now the chief editors are required to manage several editions at the same time. It becomes difficult for the chief editor to have his impact on everything that happens in every edition; in fact he adds that this should not happen as it will lead to a lot of chaos. The chief editor may not know the importance of certain news in a particular edition and may not and should not comment. Hence he says effective systems should be brought in place. Due to the change of newspaper organisations from single edition to multiple editions it has become pertinent to set the systems first. Thus he says an editor can be looked upon as the face of the newspaper brand provided the systems are in place.

Finally on the issue of whether internet will take over the print medium, he said that the internet media should not be looked upon as competition. He said that the combination of internet and a newspaper can be a lethal media weapon if both these media complement each other.

Mr. Kulkarni finally said that henceforth newspapers will play the role of a navigator and internet will support by providing tremendous amount of transparency in news. Internet he said represents speed and convenience and Newspapers represent comfort and need to be argumentative.

Analysis and different views and opinions will play a crucial role in the success of a newspaper. Hence he said the newspapers will always be intellectually oriented.

25. Milind Prabhughate: Mr. Milind Prabhughate is currently working as Deputy General Manager (DGM) Circulation at Indian Express. He has about 206 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar two decades of work experience in tine circulation department and has worked with other media organisations like The Times of India, India Today and Hindustan Times. He gave his views on how the newspaper industry works from the circulation perspective and also how circulation departments are involved in the branding process.

Mr. Prabhughate said that both Hindustan Times as well as DNA felt that there was a potential for a strong number 2 in Mumbai due to two reasons. One, there was a huge gap in the number 1 and number 2 available at that time and two the population of Mumbai had increased tremendously but the circulation of the newspapers had not grown in that ratio.

Further he said that both the newly launched newspapers adopted the subscription model, wherein the subscribers were approached at their doorstep and a payment as a one year subscription fee was accepted from them. He said that as per his opinion a very important reason why the subscription model was adopted was because the people in Mumbai do not have time to go and buy a newspaper by themselves. He felt a newspaper is a product which if already available to people, they would not go out of the step to subscribe an additional one. As per his opinion DNA too adopted the subscription model but could not get the desired circulation figure as it did not have any background.

Another good thing about the subscription model he said is that the newspaper organisation knows exactly who their readers are. Due to this it becomes easier for the newspaper organisation to have a brand strategy that exactly targets the right readers and it is beneficial from the advertisers perspective who advertise in the newspaper.

He further said that the newspaper industry is a vendor based industry. The newspaper vendors are to be paid a 25% commission per newspaper sold. Due to this invitation pricing and low cost subscriptions the vendor associations demand a specific minimum commission to the newspaper 207 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar organisations. Once this demand is met tliey do not liave any objections to the low pricing by these brands. He said that these vendors were even offered incentives by newspaper organisations to accept new subscriptions. These incentives ranged from Rs. 50 to Rs. 100. Due to this the vendors were actively involved in contributing their efforts for more subscriptions to the newspapers.

Mr. Prabhughate also discussed about the new strategies implemented by circulation departments and how these strategies also bring in business and contribute in building the newspaper brands. He said that special drives like institutional sales, sales through educational institutions, bull< sales and resort sales are implemented by the newspaper brands. Resort sales is where people from circulation departments approach resorts in a particular area near a city and ask for their contributions on the resort specifications as well as places to see nearby. These contributions are included in the newspaper and in return the resorts are asked to buy the newspapers in bulk quantities. He said activities like these are carried out on a regular basis, wherein it promotes the sale of the newspaper as well as reaches the expected target audience. He said the circulation departments are also involved in micro level promotions of newspapers like the placement of a newspaper in the stack on the vendor stall, other than the regular promotions like visibility through promotional material.

When asked about how plans are made to increase the circulation, Mr. Prabhughate said that the planning is and should be done from bottom up, where the people from the lower levels of the organisation set targets for themselves and offer ways to increase circulation. He said this is so because the people on the field are the ones who are regularly in contact with the target audience. He further added that the people in senior positions in the circulation departments guide and monitor the actions on a regular basis.

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Finally he said that the focus of the newspaper organisations today is on increasing the ad relevant circulation. He said this circulation is targeted and increased specifically keeping the advertiser in mind.

26. Dhananjay Datar: Mr. Dhananjay Datar is the Managing Director of MyVishwa Technologies, a software development and digital media firm that among other things has a web portal in Marathi language and a portal dedicated to e-publishing.

Mr. Datar debated over several aspects including the changing trends in reading, what changes should newspapers bring in their products, age-wise reading habits, how newspaper organisations can pre-plan their products and also about the brand promotion strategies of all newspapers.

On the issue of price sensitivity, Mr. Datar said that reduced price is just so that people subscribe it first and then get used to it. He felt it is very important that people get habituated to the particular brand as reading a specific newspaper is about habit. A subscription scheme that is offered for about six months to one year can be enough for an individual to get habituated to a particular newspaper, he suggested. In case of subscription he opined that only a handful of people would prefer to buy the newspaper for its scrap value.

Extending his view on habit, he said that the reading habits of people are changing as the reading culture is changing. According to him readers especially in metros are now also referring to the new forms of media for reading. He discussed about the grasping levels of the readers and said; writing has the most grasp, while audio grasp is lower compared to reading. As per his opinion the youngsters in metros and mini metros now prefer Internet.

He compared the Indian newspaper industry with that of USA and said circulations of newspapers in US went down and eventually the advertising in 209 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar newspapers also went down. The print medium in US shifted to e-paper and so did the advertisers. He said that although the shift is slow, India too will go through a similar change.

On the point of product strategy he felt that changes in the newspapers should be made keeping the future in mind. The focus should be more on subject oriented supplements. He further added that youngsters from the age group of 15 to 18 years prefer reading sports and entertainment news and articles. Youngsters from the age group of 19-24 are more focused on career related content and people from 25 years and above are more interested in business, economy, political and international content. He said that people from the respective age groups look at content as a need to them and hence are more focused accordingly.

He said citizen journalism is changing the media to a great extent. Fear factor is not found in the youth of today and hence they are not afraid to contribute towards issues that they do not agree with. He said that there is a difference between being a good human being and being a good citizen and that many youngsters are also working hard to become good citizens today. To change the product characteristics as per the requirements of the readers today, he said newspapers can welcome common people to write, express themselves through something like a blog and bring in more reader participation for a wider audience.

He further added that the regional characteristics of a reader play a great role in the success of a newspaper. The cultural and psychological traits in regions differ from people of other regions, thus this study becomes crucial. He finally added that for the optimal success of a newspaper, they should adopt a strategy wherein they can offer more quality oriented content, wider news coverage and layout and design that is the packaging of the newspaper. In terms of a brand he feels, in the current scenario packaging would come first as it is the packaging which is going to make people feel that they should pick up and read the newspaper. 210 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

In regards to the promotion strategy of Hindustan Times advertising in The Times of India, Mr. Datar said there is nothing wrong in it as Hindustan Times wanted to avail all the promotion options available at the time.

27. Dr. Girish Rangnekar: Dr. Girish Rangnekar is a PhD in marketing, has over fifteen years of experience in media, ranging from regional language newspapers to regional language electronic channels. Dr. Rangnekar discussed about the strategies of various newspapers and their impact on the competition. He also discussed about the reader profile and psyche and how strategies are focused on them.

Dr. Rangnekar said that The Times of India has always been a smart newspaper and by accepting the ads of Hindustan Times they conveyed a message to people that Hindustan Times is not in competition with The Times.

When asked about the reader profile, he said there are two types of readers; one comes from the classes and the other from masses. The classes understand the power of media. Due to additional number of newspapers in the market, the readers from the classes came to know about the other perspective towards the same news. The advertisers benefitted as they got better rates from everyone.

He further added that it was essential to launch a newspaper with a lot of strength to compete with a newspaper brand like The Times of India. He said it was important not just to have such a high budget with so much of noise while launching a new brand but even the psyche, the temperament of a winner was required. However he also added that from the media perspective media advertising like this seemed abnormal.

On the issue of a product that would be widely accepted in a city like Mumbai, Dr. Rangnekar said that the city of Mumbai has too much diversity in terms of 211 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar the number of languages and ethnicity; hence each one has his or her own different priorities. It was important to launch a newspaper to this audience. He felt DNA offered the type of content that the readers expected.

He then added that reading a specific newspaper is also a habit but is inculcated in the children by their parents. In this scenario both Hindustan Times and DNA had a responsibility to cater to the readers whose expectations were not fulfilled from the existing newspaper and also who were ready to experiment in spite of the habit. He said, to solve this dual purpose the new newspapers offered unique content, packaging and price. He also said that although readers are normally not serious while subscribing to a highly discounted newspaper, their seriousness becomes important in phase 2 that is after the subscription offers are renewed or discontinued by the newspaper organisations.

In response to the kind of content published by newspapers, Dr. Rangnekar said that newspapers are focusing too much on feature writing these days. The result of this will be that the magazine industry will come into trouble due to this, as the readers will eventually start getting all the content that the magazine has to offer in a newspaper.

Dr. Rangnekar also said that too much commercialisation of newspapers will lead to confusion and frustration among the readers.

Finally he said that the factors to successfully launch a newspaper are content, packaging and high budgets for the newspaper launch. Other factors that are important according to him are the company policy, the market that is the target audience that they are trying to attract and finally the existing positioning of the brand in the market.

28. Vijay Baviskar: Mr. Vijay Baviskar is currently editor of Daily Lokmat, a Marathi multi edition newspaper. He has been in journalism for over two decades and has been the editor of several editions of Lokmat across the 212 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

State of Maharashtra. He has personally led and launched several editions under his leadership.

Mr. Baviskar said that the roles of marketing and editorial have overlapped in the last 10 years. He said the roles have overlapped to the extent of being called as encroachment on each other’s departments; however he said this is the need of today. He said the main reason behind this is that the focus of management has changed. The owners of the newspaper organisations have now become more financially focused towards the newspaper as a business and hence this overlapping of departments, he said.

Mr. Baviskar said that due to this though, the newspapers have benefitted both as a product as well as a brand. The brands have become stronger in the process and the products have become more versatile and complete in nature. He said the editorial departments are actively involved in the branding process. He further added that the branding activity of any newspaper cannot be complete without the active involvement of the editor. Today one can see several initiatives like activities and events that are the idea and ownership of the editorial departments. He gave an example of an event called, “Maharashtrian of the Year” initiated by the editorial team of Daily Lokmat. Other activities like inviting guest editors who are celebrities are also an editorial department initiative that helps the brand. The editorial departments of newspaper organisations also keep conducting various cultural and other events which help the brand. He said such activities ultimately elevate the image of the newspaper brand and also earn revenues of the organisation. He said the editors are now becoming very active in such processes. Thus the editors today perform the role of an actor as well as a director, he said.

Mr. Baviskar further said that any brand can be accepted over a period of time only if the product is good. The editor plays the most important role in bringing out a good and widely accepted product every day.

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Thus he said in the process of brand launch of a newspaper product, the activity starts almost a year before the launch of the brand. This activity he said starts with the appointment of an editor by the management. The editor and the management then together decide the policy and line of strategy to launch the newspaper. The editor then appoints an editorial staff, and eventually other members start joining the team in phases. He said the term; “reach the target audience” is very deep rooted and involves extremely intense planning. He said for this the editor who is appointed a year in advance has to start with understanding the city, its culture, its people, important parts of the history, important occasions, places and people of the city, the flavour and original language of the city and all those things that will be important from the point of view of understanding the city to the core detail. He said the editor of the newspaper in the city should be like a person who is born and brought up in the city, and this can happen only if he or she understands the city extremely well. He said all this is important as the editor as well as the newspaper should be accepted by the people of the city.

Mr. Baviskar further said that he does not agree that a newspaper is called a product. He said that a newspaper is more than a product as it communicates with people and about people, influences people, creates memories, educates and informs people and is a part of the happy as well as sad incidences of people’s lives. These attributes are not normally found in other products. He used the term; “emotional quotient” as he felt a newspaper is related to the hearts of the people and that it touches lacs of hearts every day, day after day.

On the issue of the abundant use of internet by the readers, he said it is not something to be worried about. He said that the newspaper industry should in fact embrace the technology and media with open arms and make the most use of it as if it is a support system to the newspaper. He said internet should not be looked at as competition but as something that complements the newspaper media. He said that all media will always evolve as they have in the past. 214 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

When asked about low pricing and subscriptions he said that this is bound to increase. The media industry will keep changing its pricing strategy and there will be point of time in life when newspapers will be offered free along with certain gifts. He said exposure to media leads to exposure to education. Education leads to growth of an individual, better employment opportunities and eventually the growth of economy. In this way newspapers serve the society. From the newspapers business perspective it helps the newspapers growth as with the growth in economy advertisers too will advertisers more. Thus he said reaching out to the classes who are not targeted also eventually helps everyone.

He also added that in a scenario where the newly launched newspaper offers lower pricing, it actually helps the existing leader in the long run. This he said is so because once the subscription offers by the new newspapers are stopped, the readers prefer choosing the leading brand over the new one.

29. Shailesh Amonkar: Mr. Shailesh Amonkar has worked for several leading brands like The Times of India and Sakai in the past and now represents several leading media brands like Kalnirnay and Yahoo!. Mr. Amonkar has been actively involved in strategising for several newspaper brands.

He said that more the hype in the newspaper industry the bigger the expectations, which might lead to a failure of a brand. He said a newspaper is about habit and habits are built over time, hence it is important that a newspaper delivers superior quality but does not make too tall claims right from the first day. He said that too much of hype resulted in the failure in acceptance of DNA. DNA brought into its team several big writers like Satya Sarang and M.J. Akbar from The Times of India. DNA also hired several people with extremely high pay packages in the top and middle level management. One of the biggest persons who left The Times Group to join DNA was Mr. Pradeep Guha. In spite of all these people DNA could not achieve its objectives. He said the reason behind this was although people 215 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar were hired the ideologies of The Times Group could not be implemented. This according to Mr. Amonkar was the biggest failure of DNA. At the same time due to such high investments the initial investments and recurring expenses of DNA increased multi fold compared to Hindustan Times. Due to this DNA started negotiating with the advertisers for the want of business. This again resulted in hampering the brand image in the minds of advertisers who started perceiving DNA as a mediocre newspaper.

Hindustan Times on the other hand launched with same grandeur but did not make too tall claims. Instead of hiring celebrity writers they focused on steadily building the brand. Thus the readers did not look at Hindustan Times with abnormal expectations. Their recurring expenses were not obscure and thus they did not have to negotiate like DNA. The newspaper delivered a good product to the people and built it over the next five years. Also the fact that Hindustan Times had a strong presence in Delhi helped the brand in terms of revenues from advertisers who wanted to advertise both in Delhi as well as Mumbai. Due to this he feels Hindustan Times is a winner over the DNA today in terms of circulation as well as revenue.

He further said that if a newspaper is really such an innovative and outstanding product then why they can’t demand a premium from the buyers. He said if one compares magazines, books and newspapers, people will pay the most for a book, followed by a magazine and then a newspaper. This he said is because of the uniqueness in content. Thus content is the king he said. Content of Hindustan Times fulfilled the expectations of people. Their content mix of the newspaper was right and highlighted the brand, Mr. Amonkar said.

He further gave an example of The Times of India and said that the content mix of The Times is right. He gave examples of Times Classifieds, Appointments and Tenders and said that the editorial is not the front end but a part of. it. Mr. Amonkar further added that the brands touch readers at every point of life and that too all through the day, not just in the morning time. This he said the brands do by connecting with the readers at various points in the 216 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar day through various activities, events and contests and also through the means of the brand advertising and being present in forms other than print, like internet.

30. Abhay Raina: Mr. Abhay Raina is the Deputy Manager at The Times of India, Pune office. He has a total experience of more than five years with the media industry.

He said that Mumbai Mirror was launched with an intention of targeting the daily commuters and the youth in Mumbai. He said that Mumbai Mirror contains news and articles which are hard hitting, straight, non tracker and that highlights the new living culture. He said this is the type of content which cannot be carried in The Times of India because the readers of both the newspapers are different. The intention of launching Mumbai Mirror was also that the Group wanted to keep the complete family engaged with the same brand. He further added that Mumbai Mirror targeted a completely new segment of readers.

When asked about the strategies implemented by DNA, to hire people from The Times Group, he said it was a huge marketing failure of the brand to hire the people of The Times and still not achieve as per the expectations.

Mr. Raina said The Times of India believes and invests a lot of time and money in research. Due to the strong research base it becomes easy for the company to launch major brands in the market and make them successful. He also said that The Times has a history where it launches a brand but makes money even in test marketing. He gave an example of Brand Times a supplement which was brought out by the Pune edition, but was later closed down. He said in spite of this Brand Times made money.

Mr. Raina further added that before launching The Times Group does several feasibility studies and forecasts. He also said that the Group believes in approaching a new location with a soft launch by introducing the smaller 217 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar brands of the main newspaper in local editions first. After the success of the smaller brands the flagship brand is introduced in the new city as a local edition. He said The Times of India is extremely careful and cautious about its main brands and doesn’t launch them in haste.

Mr. Raina cited the reasons for the success of the brand as first the brand has deliverable processes like the SAP systems, strongly believes in strong returns on investments, and has 0% errors, absolute transparency in the systems, minimalistic bargains and incentives to agencies.

In response to the criticism towards the content and photos in City Times editions like Bombay Times and Pune Times, Mr. Raina said that there are sections of the society who like to read celebrity scoops and also like to see themselves in the newspaper. The City Times brands are targeted towards this section of the society.

He added that the Group believes in growth through building a brand first. He said the readers are the king and should be respected. Due to this the newspaper believes in not interfering with the editorial team.

Mr. Raina said that he does not look at competition as competition but as a support system to the media industry. He said competitor’s strategy is studied but just to understand what is currently happening in the market.

Finally in response to the question regarding the increasing use of internet he said that change is inevitable and is a part of the system. Organisations will have to adapt to the changes which The Times Group is doing by already introducing and marketing its online and mobile editions and mobile applications. He concluded by saying that the print industry may become obsolete but the news industry will never become obsolete.

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31. Indraneel Mukherjee: Mr. Indraneel Mukherjee is the Response Head of The Times of India, Pune and has a total experience of more than two decades.

Mr. Mukherjee said that the perception of The Times Group is that it takes time to respond, however the reason to launch Mumbai Mirror was DNA. He said the objective of the launch was to enter the 7 lac plus households in Mumbai. Mumbai Mirror targeted a different reader and today has carved a niche and has the second highest readership in Mumbai after The Times of India.

He further said that The Times of India is a big company that is among the top 10 brands in India in recall but has a soul of a start up company. He meant to say that the enthusiasm is still very high. The culture of The Times Group is that of innovation and freedom to experiment. Due to this he said the growth of the company is exponential. He further said that The Times of India believes in connecting with its readers through its campaigns. He mentioned the examples of Teach India, Lead India and Times Festival in Pune campaigns and activities that connected directly with its readers.

Mr. Mukherjee said that the competitors of The Times make them think about the upcoming strategies and plan accordingly. Due to this he said. The Times of India delivers value to its advertisers and readers.

Mr. Mukherjee said that Bennett Coleman & Co. has more than 1000 brands all put together and the strategy of having so many brands is to fragment the reader to the most individual level. The Times team calls this strategy as thin slicing the market.

Further he said that while launching a new brand the objective is to achieve the numbers in circulation. To achieve the desired circulation they offer the readers content which is not being currently delivered together. The editorials as well as the advertising departments deliver content in terms of news,

219 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar articles, features and ads. He said before launching a new brand in the nnarket the Group sees if it can achieve the critical mass that is required in terms of a launch.

Finally Mr. Mukherjee said, media should be neutral and influencing does not work in media industry. A neutral media product has the potential of being a big and credible brand he said.

32. Mukund Sangoram: Mr. Mukund Sangoram is the editor of Loksatta’s Pune edition. Loksatta is a multi-edition Marathi newspaper. Mr. Sangoram said that when India got independence the newspaper organisations had to rethink about their objectives. He gave an example of a Marathi newspaper called, ‘Dnyanprakash’ which was published in Marathi from Pune, which first initiated the movement of a positioning as a common man’s newspaper. He said the same concept was later picked up by Sakai paper in Pune.

Mr. Sangoram further said that after 1991 India started to progress and things started changing. He mentioned the example of Sushmita Sen winning the Miss Universe title for the first time for India. He said this was the first time the world gave India some recognition for some achievement and started looking at India as a prospective market, which at that time according to him was a 20 crore household market. Such things he said initiated the change for India.

On the issue of newspapers he said, the classification of readers was done in three categories; A, B and C, A category being the topmost target for every big brand. He further added that the editorial and marketing departments had to come together and take cohesive efforts towards branding. Ideas to increase circulation through some marketing initiatives started to be discussed with editors too and branding became an integral part of the newspaper organisation.

On the future trend, Mr. Sangoram said, very soon a new trend will come up in the newspaper industry. The concept will be impact newspaper, meaning a

220 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar newspaper that delivers response to the advertiser. He elaborated the concept and said nowadays every newspaper brand is offering the newspaper to the readers almost free of cost. Due to this readers are buying the newspapers but not reading them. Hence it can be observed that in spite of large circulation figures of newspapers, advertisers are not getting the desired response. Hence the newspapers will very soon shift from mass based positioning to class based positioning.

Mr. Sangoram questioned how it was possible for certain newspaper brands to invest crores of rupees and sustain such losses and still continue. He said that the very reason behind this is that the funds are being brought in from elsewhere, which should be analysed.

33. Sachin Bhide: Mr. Sachin Bhide is a strategy consultant and has an experience of more than 10 years. Mr. Bhide discussed on various aspects like the newspaper trends and future.

Mr. Bhide said, reading a specific newspaper is a habit and if it is viewed from the newspaper organisation’s perspective it is a good habit. He said it is a good strategy to make people habituated to the brand as people will read the specific brand only if they are habituated. The reason Mr. Bhide said is that there is not much difference in newspapers today.

He further added that niche strategy is a good strategy but conclusions regarding the acceptance of niche newspapers cannot be drawn immediately. He said the niche newspapers need to complete at least one business cycle before the conclusions can be drawn.

In regards to the tabloid newspapers he said, it is a concept that will do fairly well in the future. On the same note he added that the newspapers as a medium will never become obsolete but their format will change in the years to come, although there is no threat to the newspaper industry for at least another 70 to 80 years. 221 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

34. Rajesh Rane: Mr. Rajesh Rane has more than 25 years of experience with the media industry. He has worked as Pune Unit Head for Indian Express and as Publisher and General Manager all India, Regional Editions for India Today. He currently owns a monthly newspaper in English and an event management company.

Mr. Rane said that newspapers by nature come in laggard’s category. He said that this is the category where the customers want to be absolutely comfortable. The reason behind newspapers coming in this category is that during early morning time people want to be absolutely comfortable. Hence the brands that people use in the early morning time normally don’t change. This is also the reason why newspapers continue in the house from one generation to another and are hardly evaluated on the basis of their quality. Newspapers, Mr. Rane said also have a high degree of point of parity. Due to all these reasons he said it becomes very difficult for the new newspaper organisations to break the habit of reading the existing newspaper. Hence the new brands are left with the only option of offering trial offers to enter the households. He further added that although the newspapers have high brand parity, the brand equity of the brand is what gives the brand loyalty.

However he added that the new brands of newspapers may be getting sold but they are not read by the readers. He said a sale does not mean that the brand is used and this where the response from newspaper plays a crucial role when the advertiser takes the decision about whether or not to advertise.

On the issue of branding of newspapers Mr. Rane said that advertisements on hoardings and elsewhere is just an announcement of the arrival of the new brand and does not constitute to be termed as branding. He said if newspaper brands actually want to do brand building they should involve the readers with the brand.

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Finally he added that the hyper local brands are very advertiser friendly brands and that the strategy of these brands should be to deliver the content which is not available in the regular newspapers.

35. Sham Bhurke: Mr. Sham Bhurke has worked with Bank of Maharashtra as Deputy General Manager Marketing as well as Deputy General Manager Planning. He was also the Principal of the Training College of the Bank. He was also on the Publicity Committee of Indian Banks Association. He is currently retired from the Bank. He is the author of seventeen books.

Mr. Bhurke elaborated on the advertiser’s perspective while choosing the mediums to advertise and the expectations of advertisers from newspapers.

Mr. Bhurke said that while making advertising plans, he always focused on the leading newspapers. The sales oriented ads had different sizes and budgets while the corporate branding ads had different sizes and budgets, he said. Mr. Bhurke said their bank also used the newspapers for getting wide publicity through news. Another idea was to write for the leading newspapers on the subject of banking. He said this helped the brand in terms of equity to a great extent as the bank was viewed as an expert on the issue due to the articles. The articles and columns in the newspapers were a form of propaganda of the bank but these articles never appealed anyone to be the bank’s customer.

Mr. Bhurke further added that the readers of newspapers are of two types; the intellectuals and the commoners and said that this is how the readers will react to the content and ads in the newspapers. He mentioned that the marketing strategies of the bank targeted the readers accordingly. This is the reason why the banks focused on all four types while using the newspaper; the direct ads, corporate branding ads, press write ups and the columns and articles.

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36. Sudeshna Parmar: Mrs. Sudeshna Parmar is a freelance journalist since about twenty years and has worked for several leading publications.

Mrs. Parmar said India as a country was young in the 1990’s. However now it has entered adulthood. While elaborating the concept she said that immediately after the liberalisation took place, the country was progressing but coping with the changes. The citizens of this country were going through the transition too. Today she said, the people have changed a lot. They have their own opinions and views. She added that before the nineties, people depended on newspapers for the editor’s views and opinions; however the situation is not the same today. People are not looking for opinions from the newspapers anymore. People are not following the ideologies of a newspaper as they did previously.

Mrs. Parmar further added that people today want more knowledge and information. In case of advertising she said, ads don’t give enough information to the readers who now want more information; just the celebrity brand ambassadors cannot influence the consumers anymore. To cater to this advertorial concept picked up and is being widely accepted.

Mrs. Parmar said the roles of journalists have also changed today. The roles have shifted from social responsibility to writing stories for better readership of the newspaper. The brand is always on the top of the mind of the journalists today. However she added that the quality of journalists and journalism is falling down.

She added that the investigative journalism of today is shifting more towards yellow journalism where journalists are glorifying and glamourising news. Mrs. Parmar added that the readers are okay with this because it satiates their emotions as they personally cannot do anything against the system.

Mrs. Parmar said the future newspapers will be more like magazines, offering content that is entertainment oriented, light reading and full of stories. She 224 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar however questioned if the newspapers can be printed in such large numbers, and sold at such cheap prices considering the dearth of newsprint availability in the future due to environmental reasons.

On the issue of niche newspapers Mrs. Parmar said that such newspapers are the need of the day. She pointed out that the television medium has already fragmented with specialty sports channels like Star Cricket, or other channels like Travel and Living and History Channels.

37. Vrunda Juwale: Mrs. Vrunda Juwale is currently working as the Assistant Editor, Features at Sakai Times and has worked with Free Press Journal, Mumbai and Mid-Day, Mumbai. Her total experience is over twenty years.

Mrs, Juwale discussed about the difference between the organisation’s working methods and added that while Free Press Journal was like a training academy, Mid-Day trained the journalists to dramatise the news. At Free Press Journal, Mrs. Juwale said employees were expected to do everything. There was no segregation of work. Due to this she said every newcomer to the industry wanted to work there but also wanted to leave the job once they felt that they had learnt everything. This she felt affected the newspaper organisation as it did not have a strong team.

She further said that while at Free Press Journal the advertising department was never so significant, at Mid-Day the domination was of the marketing department. She adds that the interdepartmental communication has significantly increased in the newspaper organisations and is of benefit for everyone.

Mrs. Juwale also added that the involvement of the top management was never there at Free Press Journal which affected the brand but at Mid-Day and Sakai Times the top management is deeply involved. She said the involvement of the top management is extremely important for the brand’s success. 225 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

Mrs. Juwale further added that citizen journalism should be promoted as it is absolutely necessary to create more loyal readers. She said that there should be a dedicated effort towards promoting citizen journalism.

On the subject of employees and there style of working she said, Mid-Day aggressively demanded its employees to be consciously different. At Sakai Times she said the organisation still has some old styles but the kind of people employed resembled with the product image. She said such things are taken care of while hiring people.

38. Gauri Athale: Mrs. Gauri Athale is the Assistant Editor of The Economic Times, Pune. She discussed on the editorial aspects of the newspaper and how things have changed.

Mrs. Athale said that the way they cover news has changed now due to television. She sees television as its biggest competitor as readers don’t refer to newspapers for breaking news now. She said analysis of news has become more important now.

Mrs. Athale further said that the print media is much older and hence their contacts in the industry are much better than other media persons. This she said gives the print media an upper hand. At times the print media breaks news but still the television gets the benefit due to the visual impact, she said. Mrs. Athale also said that features and columns are increasing due to television.

She further added that the edit page decides the character of the newspaper. Brand equity is in the editorial content, she adds, saying that the content builds the newspaper brand. To ensure leadership of their brand she says they get brand equity through editorials, breaking news, untapped aspects of stories and in depth news analysis.

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She made an interesting point on the topic of appointment ads. She said that an appointment supplement lil

39. Yamaji Malkar: Mr. Yamaji Malkar is the ex-editor of Sakai Papers and owns a Marathi magazine that specialises in finance.

Mr. Malkar said that branding of newspapers is an inevitable activity today as all focus and has to be on revenues. However he added that at times the newspaper organisations overdo things.

On the issue of content Mr. Malkar pointed out two things. One, he said city based supplements and pages are read more than the mainline newspapers today as the news that appears in mainline is already viewed by them the previous day on television. Second, he points out that the future of newspapers in about 15 years from now will be of utility driven content. The newspapers will have more ads with coupons and vouchers to attract readership. He said newspapers have no threat till the aspiring class continues to be there in the society.

Further he suggested that the main competition will be among the multi­ edition newspapers and that if the single edition newspapers want to exist they need to change their product strategy and become hyper local in nature. The single edition can focus only on 3 or 4 topics and deliver in depth news on those topics only.

He said that the major issue in the future will be of delivering newspapers to the households. He stated that the reason behind this would be that the returns in terms of money to the vendors will be quite less compared to the time and efforts they take. At the same time, the newspapers will not be in a position to pay beyond a certain limit. The newspapers that are made 227 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar available to the readers will be the most successful newspapers in a few years.

40. Pranab Majumdar: Mr. Pranab Majumdar has more than 20 years of experience in the media industry. He has worked in several locations for The Times of India. He has launched The Times of India in Calcutta, Pune Mirror in Pune, the two niche newspapers of The Times Group Eastside and Westside Plus and was the Response Head of Pune Branch when he quit. He currently owns a consulting firm.

Mr. Majumdar pointed four unique characteristics of a newspaper industry. He said the first characteristic is that the newspaper product takes birth every day and dies every day, second, it has the most complicated logistics system, third, it is produced almost 365 days in a year barring the mandatory holidays and fourth it is a product that people are habituated to.

Mr. Majumdar said each brand has a different target and pricing. Marketers identify the gaps. The main objective of any business is always to generate customers. He added that newspapers also have a crucial problem that they cannot increase rates due to intense competition. He said The Times Group had the same problem. Thus to retain and increase the revenue, Mumbai Mirror was launched. The advertising rates in Mirror were kept low, reduced the advertisers wastage and the even impact value was high. The strategy worked for The Times Group and revenue increased.

Mr. Majumdar further said that The Times of India has certain strategies and principles that it observes with discipline. The first is the shift in the content which is now focused to increase the stickiness of the readers. The objective is reader engagement. Hence The Times now has crisp content, simple language and apt presentation. The Times, he said by principle does not print depressing news on the front page. The Times is readable, non-investigative, and a paper that readers can relate to and feel good about.

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He said readers don’t accept a newspaper which is very negative in approach, which is why Indian Express is struggling to get good circulation figures. Finally Mr. Majumdar added that The Times of India is the advertiser’s paper and advertisers don’t want to associate with an anti-establishment newspaper.

7.3 Findings in interviews subject to anonymity One expert mentioned that one of the toughest roles to play for both, Hindustan Times and DNA was the negotiations with the vendor associations. There was plenty of money offered by both the rivals to stop the other newspaper from being circulated and at times things went out of control. The rivalries among the two newspapers led to some unethical activities too.

Another expert stated that several newspaper owners are in this business just because they want to get the benefits that media organisations get. These owners print a very limited number of copies. These owners sell their own newsprint quota to the bigger players and earn profit from it.

7.4 Summary of Qualitative Findings 1. Every expert was of the opinion that content is the most important aspect of the newspaper.

2. They say that other factors like packaging, distribution, brand association and brand equity will be important from the brands perspective.

3. Experts are also of the opinion that low pricing and subscriptions will always be dominant henceforth to make readers try the product.

4. The experts at large accept the growing need of branding the newspaper and feel the newspaper should address the readers as well as the advertisers.

5. Editors are becoming more and more brand conscious now due to several factors and plan the newspaper in a way that it helps in increasing the brand equity. 229 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

6. The people from the marketing departments are still hesitant to accept that the editors have accepted the importance of brands.

7. The Times of India has always innovated and led the path of the newspaper industry of India.

8. There is a divide on the views of the future of print due to the advent of internet. Few feel that print will be outdated, some feel that print will remain but the format of print content will change while others feel that there will be no change for at least another 50 years. A few experts also said that internet should be viewed as a complementary to the print and not as a substitute or a competitor to the print.

9. Several unethical practices occur in the newspaper industry which is meant to reflect ethics and values. 10. Experts feel that the real growth is happening in the regional language newspapers and that is where the growth vyill be in the next few years.

11. Experts are of the opinion that innovation is the key to the success of a newspaper.

12. Readers can be classified into two categories; status oriented readers and the intellectual readers. Association of the brand of a newspaper is with status, while the association of content is with intellect, ideologies and habit.

7.5 Conclusions

7.5.1 SWOT Analysis: On the basis of the qualitative and quantitative findings and the literature studied, the researcher has concluded on the points that could be the strengths and weaknesses of the English newspaper industry in India and the opportunities and threats of the industry. Figure 7.2 depicts the SWOT Analysis.

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The researcher has done a detail analysis of these strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Ads deliver response Falling Readership Figures Highly credibile Advertisers influence on content Innovations in Print Not Interactive

SWOT ANALYSIS

Hyperlocalisation New Media Education Programs Other Media Growing Literacy Newsprint costs Growing Economy English is not the first language Foreign Direct Investments Niche Strategy

Figure 7.2: SWOT Analysis of English newspaper Industry in India Source: Concluded by the researcher on the basis of quantitative and qualitative findings

1. Strengths: The greatest strength of the newspapers is that newspapers give instant response in terms of sales to the advertiser. Generally advertisers who want instant response opt for the print medium, especially newspapers. This is a fact in India and hence the advertisers spend major parts of their budgets on the print medium, especially the newspapers. It is also observed

231 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar that the English newspapers get about 60% of the total print advertising budgets. This is a clear indication that the English newspapers deliver better response than the regional language newspapers.

Other factor is that the newspapers are still considered very high on the credibility issue. People trust the print medium much more than other mediums. An article on the web portal (www.trak.in) supports this statement.

Another plus point of the newspaper medium is the innovations that the newspapers are implementing in regards to the advertisements, layout of the newspaper or the content itself. This innovation is giving the newspapers the desired growth. Research conducted by AdEx India supports this. (www.tamindia.com).

2. Weaknesses: The researcher identifies three weaknesses of the newspapers as a product. The first problem is that although the circulation figures are increasing the readership figures are falling. The industry feels the main reason for this fall of readership is that there is an increasing disinterest among the youngsters to reading habits. As pointed by a few experts, the younger generation especially those who are born after 1990 are moving away from the reading habit.

Second problem is that the advertisers are trying to claim the content space and also influence the newspapers. This is a problem expressed by several experts working in editorial departments of newspaper organisations. This could result in the loss of credibility towards the newspapers and eventually the readers could switch to other mediums if the sanctity of the print medium is lost. The growing dependency on the advertisers for revenue is the root cause behind this.

Finally the print is not an interactive medium like the internet or mobile. This is one of the reasons why the youngsters are not keen towards this medium.

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3. Opportunities: The researcher is of the opinion that the real opportunities for the medium lie in hyper localisation. This is a concept in which newspapers offer content that is hyper local in nature. Readers get to watch the national and international news on television and internet the moment an incidence takes place. Hence it is not breaking news or fresh news for the readers the next day in the morning. However details of what happen in the city or in their locality are not known to them. To cater to this the newspapers should focus on content which offers news about the incidences in the reader’s neighbouring locality and that city.

Active participation in education programs with schools, the growing literacy rate, the booming economy of India and increasing interest of the global newspaper brands to enter the Indian market are some of the other opportunities identified by the researcher. The researcher also identifies through research that there is a growing demand for the niche strategy which means subject special or audience special newspapers and magazines.

4. Threats: The researcher finds four major threats to the industry. First is the growing use of new media which means the internet and mobile. Due to this growing usage and its diverse usage, the print may lose its importance, especially if it does not take steps to keep the target audience attracted to the medium.

The second threat has existed since several years; which are the other media like television, magazines and other newspaper brands. The third threat is that of the increasing newsprint costs. These are increasing the burden on the newspaper companies and thus forcing advertisers to spend more.

Finally the threat is that English is not the first language in India. Hence even with increasing literacy levels, the regional language newspapers are bound to grow first. As an expert pointed out, people will always have more affinity towards regional language newspapers than the English newspapers as they would have emotional attachments with the regional language newspapers. 233 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

7.5.2 Hypothesis Testing

1. Hypotliesis 1: Satisfaction level of readers depends on the newspaper and contents in them.

Existing 1 2 3 4 5 Total Newspaper

TOI -- 33 654 154 841

DNA -- 57 297 44 398

HT -- 63 238 39 340

MINT - - 56 112 14 182

MM - - 53 151 35 239 Total 262 1452 286 2000

Table 7.1: Satisfaction levels of readers

701= The Times of India HT= Hindustan Times MM= Mumbai Mirror

Only 3 satisfaction levels are considered. A hypothesis is considered for the chi-square test. Hypothesis: Satisfaction level and newspaper are independent. test (chi-square test is used) Calculated value of is 161.64. Table value of X^ for 8 degrees of freedom at 5% level is X^ 8, .05= 15.507 As observed Calculated value > Table Value

Therefore the hypothesis that satisfaction level and reading existing newspaper are independent is rejected. Therefore satisfaction level depends on which newspaper readers are reading.

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If the percentage of highest levels of satisfaction level is considered the table is as below.

Existing Persons having highest Total Persons Percentage Newspaper level of satisfaction TOI 154 841 18.31 DNA 44 398 11.05 HT 39 340 11.47 MINT 14 182 7.69 MM 35 239 14.64

Table 7.2: Respondents having highest level of satisfaction

Observation: This shows that The Times of India readers have highest satisfaction levels and the newspaper with second highest satisfaction levels is Mumbai Mirror.

Conclusion: Hypothesis that satisfaction levels of readers depends on the newspaper and contents in them is accepted.

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2. Hypothesis 2: Campaign strategies lead to success of newspapers.

Each of the 2000 respondents have rated the newspapers campaigns of the following brands from 1 to 5.

Newspaper 1 2 3 4 5 Total DNA 82 275 422 879 342 2000 HT 204 654 684 362 96 2000 MM 129 403 483 816 169 2000 MINT 536 765 456 180 63 2000

Table 7.3: Readers rating to the newspaper campaigns of the English newspapers in Mumbai

To decide whose campaign was good it was decided to consider the weighted averages method. For lowest is given as 1 and weight for 5 is 5.

The weighted averages were as below. Newspaper Weighted Average DNA 3.562 HT 2.746 MM 3.246 MINT 2.469

Table 7.4: Weighted Averages Chart Observation: It can be observed that DNA ranked 1®* in campaigning. The 2"*^ best campaigning was of Mumbai Mirror followed by Hindustan Times and then Mint.

Conclusion: Hypothesis that campaign strategies lead to success of newspapers is accepted.

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3. Hypothesis 3: Marketing strategies resuit in increase of sale of newspapers.

For this hypothesis the impact of marketing strategies on the buyer was studied. Impact Number of readers Percentage No Impact 852 42.60 Bought the newspaper 212 10.60 once Subscribed to the 936 46.80 newspaper TOTAL 2000 100

Table 7.5: Impact of marlceting strategies on the readers of English newspapers in Mumbai

Percentage method was used to get the results.

IVlore than 50% of the readers had some impact of the marketing strategies.

Almost 50% (46.80%) subscribed to the newspaper.

10.60% bought the newspaper at least once after being influenced by the strategies.

The researcher also studied which newspaper was purchased the most due to the impact. The observations were as follows.

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The breakup of 1148 that either subscribed to the newspaper or bought it once was as follows.

Newspaper Number of readers Percentage DNA 612 53.31 HT 453 39.46 MM 104 9.59 MINT 128 11.15

Table 7.6: Breakup of respondents who purchased/ subscribed to the newly launched newspapers

Observations: The research indicates that almost half the respondents (46.80%) have become subscribers of the newspapers newly launched. 10.60% of the respondents have purchased the newspaper at least once. In the second phase, 53.31% of respondents preferred DNA.

Conclusion: The hypothesis that marketing strategies result in increasing sale of newspapers is accepted.

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4. Hypothesis 4: Strategic planning of campaigning in second phase is the Icey factor in maintaining customers.

Chi-square test was performed. Newspaper Reason 1 % Reason 2 % Reason 3 % DNA 546 73.09 124 16.60 77 10.31 HT 864 72.42 231 19.36 98 8.21

MM 702 74.92 235 25.08 -- MINT 853 53.75 468 29.49 266 16.76

Table 7.7: Response to the reasons behind failure of campaigning in the 2"“ phase

Observations: The Chi-square test revealed that the main reasons behind the failure of the campaign were as mentioned below. 1) The newspaper did not deliver what it had promised in terms of news, article content and quality.

2) Newspapers advertising and marketing focused on maligning the image of other brands.

Conclusion: The hypothesis that Strategic planning of campaigning in second phase is the key factor in maintaining customers is accepted.

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5. Hypothesis 5: It is necessary to integrate various media veiiicles for tlie success of a newspaper brand.

To test this hypothesis market study was conducted. Qualitative data in terms of interviews of experts were also referred.

Observations: It was obsen/ed that Hindustan Times, DNA, f^umbai Mirror and Mint all newspapers used various media tools like the outdoor medium, print, internet, events and promotions. None of the newspapers relied only on one media to launch their brand in the city. This indicates that readers were targeted using various media and at various timings. The use of various media vehicles by each brand of newspaper launched in Mumbai during the year 2005 clearly indicates a positive relationship in the media vehicles used and the success of those brands.

Conclusion: The hypothesis that it is necessary to integrate various media vehicles for the success of a newspaper brand is accepted.

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6. Hypothesis 6: Reduced price/ scheme are the dominant methods used by new brands of newspapers for customer acquisition.

To test this hypothesis market study was conducted. Qualitative data in terms of interviews of experts were also referred.

Observations: It is observed that all newspapers which were launched in Mumbai used the reduced price and subscription scheme to attract the readers. When these general dailies were launched in Mumbai, even The Asian Age launched a one rupee scheme. It is also observed that the same trend exists in regional language newspapers as well as English newspapers in other cities too. Lokmat, Pudhari and Sakai, the three leading Marathi general dailies, all have implemented one rupee schemes wherever they have launched their editions. The latest example is of Maharashtra Times which was launched in Pune in 2010. Maharashtra Times initially offered a scheme of Rs. 11 for 4 months and then offered the newspaper free for one more month. The scheme was further extended to Rs. 99 for one year. When DNA launched in Pune for the first time they launched with a subscription offer and now have again launched a new subscription offer for the readers in the year 2011. Sakai Times the English newspaper from Pune too launched the newspaper with a subscription offer.

Conclusion: Thus the hypothesis that reduced price/ scheme are the dominant methods used by new brands of newspapers for customer acquisition is accepted.

I & [JA Y a X a '■ '■

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7.5.3 The other conclusions that were drawn from the research were: 1. The Times of India is the number one newspaper in Mumbai with 72.60% of total readers. Mumbai Mirror also claims a high circulation figure as it was distributed free of cost along with The Times of India. As per the research Mid Day with 62.40% is the second highest in circulation. The reason for Mid Day’s high circulation could be attributed to the commuting oriented lifestyle of the people from Mumbai. A huge population of people in Mumbai can be found reading Mid Day while travelling from bus, railway or taxis and cars.

2. A high population of respondents are reading the newspapers since more than 10 years. This indicates that once people start reading newspapers, they seldom break the pattern.

3. Some of the reasons why The Times of India shows an increase in the number of readers on Sunday are that people have more time to spare on Sundays. The news coverage on Sundays is also more in terms of quantity and variety. Mumbai Mirror also shows an increase in readers because it is circulated along with The Times of India. However on Sundays Mid Day shows a decrease in the number of readers as Mid Day is a newspaper which is read mainly while commuting to and from offices and in the offices itself.

4. The newspaper sales mainly happen through subscriptions. The reasons for subscription could be low cost of investment, discount schemes and gifts upon subscriptions and the time saved by receiving the newspaper at home.

5. In Mumbai a huge population of people leaves home early in the morning and returns home late at night. This routine makes it difficult for people to subscribe to newspaper and read it at home on a daily basis. However such people are also found reading newspapers in offices or during travel.

6. When readers choose a particular newspaper they choose it for good articles and good news. Hence considering that two newspapers offer the same scheme, price and discount, people would mainly put the parameters of 242 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar good articles and news than anything else. In regards to brand loyalty this could also be related to the habit of reading the same newspaper every day.

7. Political, international, sports and front page news is still on the top slot of priority. With this we can conclude that people still read newspapers mainly for serious news. Sports section is read by everyone in general immaterial of age, gender or income group.

8. 57.60% of the total readers were reading a different newspaper before reading the existing one. The conclusion to draw is that many people do not mind either a different or an additional newspaper to read.

9. A major population of the Times of India readers chose to buy a new newspaper. However the initial circulation of The Times of India was high, eventually leading to more people from their opting for a new newspaper.

10. 83.767% of the total readers who have started reading a new newspaper are still reading the previous newspaper. This leads to the conclusion that major population of respondents chose not to stop reading the existing newspaper.

11. Most of the people who subscribed to a new newspaper, subscribed due to an attractive scheme. It can be concluded that people will stop reading the existing newspaper if the content is not as per their expectations. An attractive scheme cannot be the reason to stop reading an existing newspaper.

12. Reading a newspaper normally starts at a young age, when everyone is in school. The intention of parents is that to educate the child on several issues rather than just academics. Hence in majority of the cases, parents have been the influential factor to start reading a newspaper. In case of the new newspapers that have been launched people other than friends have also turned out to be influential. 243 Ph.D. Thesis of Mr. Rahul Shiledar

13. The Times of India readers liave highest satisfaction levels, followed by Mumbai Mirror. One of the points that could be concluded from this finding is that circulation figures are directly proportionate to the satisfaction levels.

14. 42.60% had no impact of marketing strategies, while 46.80% respondents subscribed to the newspaper. It can be concluded that marketing strategies do play a very significant role in the purchase of a newspaper. The reason is that there is a large population of readers who react to these strategies. 15. It can be concluded that a major population of people did not mind trying another newspaper. Those who decided to try another newspaper either by purchasing it or subscribing it preferred DNA.

16. Televisions News channels and free to view news on the web are increasing day by day. A major population of respondents are from the average age group of 32.32 years. In spite of this most of them are either doubtful about the importance levels of newspapers in the years to come or are positive about their importance. This clearly helps conclude that it will be difficult to see people neglecting the newspaper medium.

17. It was observed that 75.50% of the total respondents prefer to read The Times of India first. It can thus be concluded that The Times of India fulfils the expectations of the readers.

18. 90.90% of total respondents said their loyalty towards their newspaper changed due to the advertising campaigns by the newspapers. However when respondents were asked to explain they said they either purchased a new newspaper once, or subscribed it along with The Times of India. This concludes that people are ready to try new newspapers; however they are still not ready to stop reading The Times of India. Thus loyalties do not seem to have changed completely.

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19. It can be concluded on the basis of the research that newspaper is more of importance than just a habit, however more than 40% of people said that it is a habit. 20. 91.20% of the respondents replied that outdoor advertising was done by newspapers to promote themselves during the launch period. Thus it can be concluded that although people may have subscribed to the newspapers due to attractive schemes, in regards to advertising, outdoor media had more recall value than any other media.

21. 77.30% of total respondents are of the opinion that promotion campaign of Mint failed the most, followed by Hindustan Times. According to respondents, DNA had the least failure rate. It can be concluded that the success of promotional campaigns are directly proportional to the success in circulation figures.

22. It can be concluded that launch campaigns of newspapers mainly fail when:

1) Newspapers advertising and marketing fails to convey what they would offer to the readers.

2) Newspapers advertising and marketing focused on speaking badly about other newspapers.

3) Over campaigning, too much follow up led to losing interest.

23. The Times of India is number 1, according to the readers of the competing brands. However it being number 1 does not stop readers from reading other newspapers. Thus a newspaper being number 1 is not a factor to persuade other prospective readers to read the newspaper which is at the 1 st position.

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