Ranen Kumar Goswami
Changing times confront us with newer challenges. Confronting them by adapting to the demands of circumstances can be the only way to overcome them. For the print media, the challenges are a little too many. The electronic media, the digital media, the ruthless fight for market share and audience attention, the shrinking ad revenues and so on. And as if these are not enough, newspapers were accused of being a potential virus carrier during the pandemic. Dailies turned untouchable as Covid-19 unleashed itself across the country and the world. Copies were barred from being delivered in many areas of some leading cities. The pandemic spelled worse days for newspaper circulation. Countrywide lockdown prevented the flow of non-government ad revenue resulting in severe financial constraints for the media industry as a whole. Several newspapers closed down a number of their editions, some weeklies took the incarnations of Sunday supplements of the dailies from the same house, while some dailies folded up their weekly supplements altogether.
As per Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), the total number of registered publications as on March 31, 2020 is 1,43,423, which include 14,508 newspapers. An official study on media ownership and control, released in April, 2022, says the global print industry has been affected by the unfavourable macro-economic conditions like ease of access, online availability of news and overall global economic slowdown occasioned by the outbreak of Covid-19. According to KPMG-India’s Media and Entertainment Report 2020, the print segment shrunk by 8.3% during 2019-20 with circulation revenue dwindling at the rate of 4.2%. Further, Hindi circulation revenue fell by 20% in 2020 compared to 2019, while English circulation revenues fell by 50%.
As the influence of digital media is on the rise, there’s a timely realization in the print media that its combination with the digital form will drive its growth. Consequently, the print media is rapidly embracing new technological innovations and progressively utilizing e-services by launching e-versions of their print editions including dailies, weeklies and magazines. On the other hand, global tech giant Google also launched its News Showcase (news aggregators) in India on May 19, 2021. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS), an association representing around 800 publishers, on February 25, 2021, approached Google asking it to compensate them for carrying their content online and share 85% of the ad revenue. The INS said Google is taking a giant share of advertising spends leaving publishers with a small share and that the publishers are facing a very opaque advertising system as they are unable to get the details of the Google advertising value chain. Left with no other choice, Google had to agree to the INS request and signed agreements with around 30 media outlets to offer access to some of their contents on News Showcase.
The Covid-19 lockdown, imposed on March 25, 2020, even though inevitable, was no good news for the media industry. The result was what the INS called an unprecedented crisis with no advertising revenue, huge input costs and import duty on newsprint as the underlying causes. In April 2020, the INS shot off a letter to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and said newspapers had cut down their pages to unprecedented levels with many merging weekend supplements with the main editions. Despite these measures they were losing money every single day, it said and demanded total removal of customs duty on newsprint, a two-year tax holiday for newspaper establishments, 50% raise in advertisement rate of Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC) and 100% increase in budget spend for print media and immediate settlement of payment towards all outstanding advertising bills from BOC. The organization urged the Centre to advise State Governments to settle pending advertising dues.
In 2020 itself, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting informed the Rajya Sabha that it had received representations from various newspaper industry associations, including the INS, Indian Languages Newspaper Association and major media houses for withdrawal of 10% customs duty imposed in Finance bill 2019 on newsprint. The Finance Ministry decided to reduce it to 5% after considering all factors, including the needs of domestic newsprint manufacturers.
During the pandemic period and its aftermath, many small and medium newspapers either closed shop or suspended publishing their editions. Assam was no exception. Even financially sound publications faced serious challenges and were forced to take austerity measures including job-cuts. All these had a ripple effect, thus affecting a large number of employees, their families as well as allied industries, printing presses, distribution mechanism, newspaper mechanism and delivery boys.
Today’s interlinked world springs surprises that can unsettle any establishment, however well-positioned it is in the market. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proved to be a big blow for the newspaper industry. According to media reports, Russia accounts for almost 45% of Indian newsprint imports and Canada for another 40%. Russia is also the leading exporter of newsprint globally and exports most of its newsprint to India. Following the conflict, several major global shipping companies stopped bookings to and from Russian ports, creating a logjam of containers there. The industry at home depends on less than 50 per cent domestic production of newsprint. Domestic manufacturing has barely kept the quality of imports due to low demand and supply, unavailability of raw material, dated equipment and higher production costs.
According to the Indian Newsprint Manufacturers Association, of the 2.2 million tonne per annum (MTPA) consumption of newsprint in India, imports constitute 1.5 MTPA. Another pressure is the fallout of runaway inflation of global energy (natural and coal) prices, which constitute almost 30% of the cost of newsprint production at paper mills. Media reports further let us know that the scarcity in newsprint supplies has driven prices to unsustainably high levels. Till March 2022, the price of imported newsprint already doubled to $950 per tonne from $450 per tonne in 2019. Newsprint typically amounts to about 40 to 50% of the cost of producing a newspaper. Other elements like inks, aluminium plates for printing and transportation costs are also becoming more expensive due to the global surge in commodity prices, creating further pressure on newspaper costs.
Back in April 2020 (before the newsprint crisis), media watcher Sevanti Ninan said the solution can be three-fold:“With some help from governments, a lot of help from those who have fattened at the expense of print—internet giants like Google and Facebook—and with the assiduous building of an online subscriber base, something in which Indian newspapers lag far behind their Western subscribers.” Voices from the industry have already urged the Union government to do away with the remaining 5% customs duty on newsprint as this can also be a big relief.
Finally, it will be out of place to remember what Lebanese American philosopher Kahlil Gibran said: “You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. You are not evil when you go thither limping. Even those who limp do not backward.” We firmly believe, despite challenges, the print media will never go backward.
Source: Assam Tribune (3/8/2022)
[* The writer is a renowned Guwahati-based journalist.]
