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November 2013 | Volume 34 | Issue 11 | Rs 40 Surveywww.rindsurvey.com / www.pressinstitute.in RINDA Journal of the Press Institute of India - Research Institute for Newspaper Development EYEING DIGITAL AS AN OPPORTUNITY ATTRACTING THE EYEBALLS: A vibrant-looking screen on the NHM Reader that can be downloaded free. Launched less than a year ago by Chennai- based New Horizon Media, it is available as an iOS (Apple) application; there’s an Android version as well. The NHM Reader can support up to four devices. In the book publishing world in India, New Horizon Media is leading from the front and looks set to ride the crest of the digital wave. • ‘Our reach will be much more in • Four-high tower press for German the digital era’ regional paper • FormerLine solution for Chinese • FoldLine provides boost to Italian digital printer print leader • Creative newspaper supplements • News from the World Publishing Expo, from Lake Constance Berlin • magPeople joins CCI FROM THE EDITOR You can charge a premium and still increase circulation Two recent headlines on a news site caught me eye. One read: FT says that following shift from print to digital it now employs more journalists than ever before. The other: Times titles hit 350000 print/ online subscribers – you can charge a premium and still increase circulation. Press Gazette, published online out of the British Isles and an independent voice for journalism and journalists, referring to a report in the Financial Times, says the shift from print to digital journalism can lead to an increase in editorial staff. Indeed, since the FT went ‘digital-first’, the number of journalists on staff has increased to more that 650, the most in its history. Today, more than two million people read the FT in print and digital but there are 100000 more digital subscribers than print, 50 per cent of the subscribers on mobile platforms. The FT digital version now runs on a meter model, which means it must have useful data about who its subscribers are. Times have changed dramatically from the days of the Nokia phone. The barriers between editorial and marketing have long disappeared and, significantly, both departments in many newspapers organisations now have to work together to attract the reader. The reader is King and knows what value-added content is. However, earning revenue is critical to the success of the digital platform. Readers are willing to pay for quality content. The Press Gazette mentions in another piece that The Times has managed to increase its number of digital subscribers despite increasing the price to £4 a week. So, pay-walls do work. As Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief marketing Officer of News UK, says, “You cannot be half pregnant, you either charge for your content or you don't. Consumers aren't stupid.” As a corollary she adds that a firm paywall is required for a media organisation to be in a position to fund quality journalism. The moral of the story is: you can charge a premium and still increase circulation. This is proved by The Times – digital editions of the paper now make up more than a quarter of total sales. News UK chief executive Mike Darcey sums it all up well when he says: “Charging for our journalism allows us to invest in our journalism, creating an even better experience for our readers and helping to secure a sustainable future for our titles.” Closer home, I felt that resonance while reading the story about New Horizon Media’s gradual progression to the digital space, a story put together by Susan Philip who has recently joined us. Starting off with the objective of wanting to spread the printed word, Badri Seshadri and Satyanarayanan, the co-founders of New Horizon Media based in Chennai, decided some years ago that it was time to move on to the digital platform. They are doing fairly well, even developing an app called the NHM Reader. Is NHM’s progression into electronic publishing a leap of faith, Philip asks. Perhaps it is, but if you have the courage and see every challenge as an opportunity, the future can only be bright. Sashi Nair [email protected] November 2013 RIND Survey 1 RIND Survey November 2013 | Volume 34 | Issue 11 ‘Our reach will be much more in the digital era’ 4 FormerLine solution for Chinese digital printer 10 C o n t e s Creative newspaper supplements from Lake Constance 14 2 RIND Survey November 2013 RIND Survey magPeople joins CCI 16 Four-high tower press for German regional paper 18 FoldLine provides boost to Italian print leader 20 World Publishing Expo, Berlin 22 Industry Updates 28 Other News 45 Calendar 50 Cover page photo: New Horizon Media November 2013 RIND Survey 3 ‘Our reach will be much more in the digital era’ “We were very sure we would go digital one day.” That’s how K. Satyanarayan recalls the long-term plans of New Horizon Media after it was established in 2004, a publishing house he co-founded with Badri Seshadri. And that’s just what NHM is doing today, almost a decade later – going digital. Susan Philip has the story ew Horizon Media (NHM) is the brainchild of K. Satyanarayan (or Satya as he is better known) and Badri Seshadri. They were students Ntogether at IIT-Madras and cemented their friendship at Cornell University, USA. They were together at Cricinfo, a sports news website focusing on cricket, which Seshadri co-founded. “When we sold Crickinfo to Wisden, we looked around for something to do,” remembers Satya. They decided to address the problem of the vast number of people in India who were hungry for knowledge, but were denied access to information because they were not familiar with the English language. Post Crickinfo, they would have ideally liked to do something online. But a decade ago, Internet penetration was very poor in India, and speed and fonts for vernacular languages were additional The NHM Reader Logo. problems. They opted, for that point in time at least, to spread knowledge via the printed word. But times have changed. Internet access has grown beyond expectations. Time then, to move into Phase II. “For the last couple of years we have been gearing for a digital platform. We have developed the NHM Reader, which can be downloaded free. It was launched about nine months ago,” says a beaming Satya. It is available as an iOS (Apple) application and there’s an Android version as well. The NHM Reader can support up to four devices. If you have, say an iPad and a smartphone, and start reading an e-book on one of them, you can pick up from where you left off on the other gadget provided the two are synchronised. “The platform will theoretically support all languages. But we’re concentrating on Indian ones. For English, you can always go to Kindle,” explains Satya. You must have books in your DNA to be successful It’s not easy for a printer to get into e-books; not easy even for a technical company to do it. Amazon is the dominant publisher. Google wants to be there, but it’s not happening, because Google has so many other things to do. Kobe was started by a printed bookstore chain. Like Amazon, they have books in their DNA. Such companies will do well, but others will struggle. In the US, things are different from India. They have a large number of readers and book stores. Amazon launched print books online, then converted bookstore buyers to Amazon online over time. They followed up by selling other things online. Flipkart tried to replicate the model with books. But there just aren’t enough readers here to make that model a success. When they diversified into other things, they found only the same customers coming in. Now they’re aggressively wooing customers. < 4 RIND Survey November 2013 Sharing Tamil literature with a wider world New Horizon Media was set up in 2004 with the idea of publishing in Indian languages. It sought to fill the hunger for knowledge experienced by the many, many Indians who don’t know English. It wasn’t lack of interest that was the problem, K Satyanarayan and Badri Seshadri found. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions were growing exponentially. The problem was that there just wasn’t enough serious reading material in Tamil. English is the language of scholarship in India, but not of the masses, points out Satyanarayan. So they started publishing in Tamil. The fledgling firm encountered many hurdles. Authors had to be found who were knowledgeable and also familiar with, and ready to work in Tamil. Not an easy task. So NHM focused on translations. This too had problems. Translators had to be bilingual besides having a working knowledge of the subject matter. K.Satyanarayan. People with these qualifications mostly do not consider it worth their while to do translations as the pay is low. But things are slowly improving. “We were a new initiative in the Tamil market when we started. Now more people have entered the scene,” says Satya. There’s a long way to go yet, but the future looks good because of the growing importance of e-publishing. Whatwill be the challenges of the future? How do you see things developing? New infrastructure must come, which will create an interface, like a distributor, between publishers and all stores. This new entity must take it upon itself to sign on all e-publishers, and then liaise with various platforms. The publisher will give details to the single entity, who will in turn distribute it to all platforms.

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