What are the things you get from newspapers which you cannot get from any of the other channels? Would you switch from newsprint to online media forever? If yes, then is why is it all major answers are expanding to other city editions ?
Try to think about answers for above questions. It is truly stimulating given the spate of new editions/ new papers flooding the market.
According to Prof Rajagopalan........
Print media in India is flourishing. If we take the past 2 years of incidents into account, Indian newspaper industry has seen tremendous growth.. I am not talking about the revenue of the industry but the choices available to the consumer. In the past 2 years I have seen at least 3 newspapers expanding in India. That does not necessarily mean that the quality of the content has increased.
Mint which is coming from Hindustan Times has started its operations in key metros. The paper is published in collaboration with Wall Street Journal. DNA has expanded their services in Bangalore. Times went to Chennai which is The Hindu's bastion. Another regional newspaper (which I know of) Sakshi was launched in Andhra Pradesh. New York Times picked a 5% stake in Deccan Chronicle. All these events are showing the print media industry a rosy picture. But is it really that rosy?
Mint started in Mumbai and Delhi. They started a little later in Bangalore. I was really wondering why they did not start it sooner. Ever since Mint started its services in Bangalore I am a regular subscriber. This is in addition to subscribing to their RSS feeds since their inception. Mint is one of its kind newspaper and is a cut above the rest like Economic Times and Business Standard. Its focus is impeccable.
But, now I am re-thinking about the subscription. Reason is not the price. It only costs 2 rupees per day and the monthly bill comes to 50 odd rupees. The reason is the clutter it is creating. I can very well read the paper online. Archiving is a problem for the print version. Why do I need this subscription?
One more story is that of DNA. DNA started their operations only last December in Bangalore. It managed to grab the attention by careful advertising. DNA has used billboards and radio stations to put the bang in Bangalore. It had an offer where you pay for the full year subscription. Since I am a news geek I fell for it. Now I have DNA coming in daily and I can't stop it. I am even thinking about gifting the coupons to someone so that I can be clutter free. I can read DNA online.
When I was re-thinking about my subscription I came across this post from Seth Godin's blog. This has reinforced my conviction. I am thoroughly convinced that I don't need newspapers. My RSS feeds will work just fine.
This of course would apply for the tech savvy. Others are getting their dose of daily news from TV. It is round the clock so you can't miss a thing. Then they are other channels like SMS alerts and mobiles. Between web, TV and mobile we have covered most of the things. Or so I think.
Moving from paper newspaper to online newspaper is easy and is being adapted by most young and adult professinals. One of the benefit of online newspaper is that one can open online newspaper anywhere and anytime of he day.They dont have to go for the trouble of carrying the physical paper. Also other stacking issues of newspaper once it has delivered its best at the end of the day is a problem i.e additional space to stock newspapers.
ReplyDeleteAs now the world is following concept of GO GREEN , reading online newspaper is a good solution to it. Trees could be saved and will have some contribution for better enviornment to live in.
Number of newspapers that are available online is also huge so can have a flavour of news from varied publisers.
But what online newspaper cannot replace is , i believe...lot of people start their day with hot cup of tea and newspaper in the breakfast...That emotional benefit cannot be replaced by online news....:)
Also online newspaper is more beneficial to professionals who generally dont have time to open newspaper and read it but retired people who have ample amount of time, housewives who either dont have access to internet or dont know how tooperate, newspaper will continue to serve this segment of newspaper lovers....
There has been a plethora of newspapers which have been flooding the market. Also, the number of TV news channels is unimaginable today. Every major news channel grp (Star, Zee, etc) have a channel dedicated for news. Some even have multi-lingual channels.
ReplyDeleteEven the online news channels with their RSS feeds are trying hard to capture attention. Despite all this, TOI enjoys the largest readership base in the world!
Some key reasons that I think are:
1. Most of TV news channels are today filled with Junk. A boy falling in a mud hole in a remote village qualifies as Breaking news. There is so much melodrama that is created around non-descript news just to increase TRPs. Its a sad manifestation of Journalism gone haywire.
2. Online news channels dont provide the same comfort as a print newspaper. Besides, India does not enjoy the best of Internet penetration levels in the world (although its picking up). Hence the biggest challenge that online news portals have is reachability.
3. Mobile news are expected to be very crisp and short in nature. I would personally not like viewing an entire news article on my cell's small display. I would not really get the information i seek in the details i want.
4. Print news provide the comfort of reading it at my own leisure and convenience. Despite the fact, that it adds on to the pile, but i like reading the news articles in details (not comfortable on mobile), i dont need to power on a computer or laptop (online news) or switch on the idiot box and get subjected to a seawave of news that maynot be relevant for me. In print news, i can easily select what i want to read.
Najmuddin
SMM
When your website or blog goes live for the first time, it is exciting. That is until you realize no one but you and your. All Bangla Newspaper
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