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Category: Uncategorized
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Ranjona Banerji reviews nightly news and the morning papers in Freaking News More Garba-Dandiya in Mumbai papers please
By Ranjona Banerji
The more I watch TV news (mainly thanks to this blog, my life was far less complicated before this!!!), the more sorry I feel for TV journalists in India. The constant need to fill up air time with drama, pyrotechnics and hysterics must be overwhelmingly frightening. The news in Indian TV world can never just be about events taking place. It has to be worthy of a Cecil B deMille movie with a thundering Charleton Heston, several horses, a few small divine miracles and for the grand finale at the very least, the parting of the Red Sea.
Monday night and Tuesday morning were full of the death of a National Conference worker in Jammu & Kashmir and the alleged involvement of chief minister Omar Abdullah somehow or the other, the arrest of Gujarat cop Sanjiv Bhatt for turning against the Narendra Modi government and to some extent, the clarification by Montek Singh Ahluwalia on the Planning Commission’s poverty figures.
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Tuesday morning’s newspapers found merit in Bhatt’s arrest and Ahluwalia’s statement but dismissed the J&K fight to a few paras on the nation pages. TV however continues with the story because it has drama and for many of our uber-nationalist TV journalists, J&K has a special fascination. The Indian Express Delhi edition however led with J&K. The Hindu focused on the ongoing Telengana stir which has been downplayed by Mumbai papers at least.
In fact, the poverty issue has been given full range in our newspapers. The Times of India however has carried two intriguing opinion pieces. Arvind Panagriya, who teaches at Columbia University decided that our high child malnutrition figures are manipulated. And Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer, who normally illuminates economic matters for us lesser mortals, mocked the sudden middle class interest in poverty. Contrastingly, on Sunday, The Hindustan Times carried an excellent piece by Kirit Parikh on our poverty measures. TOI on Tuesday has Parikh going further and discussing the failures of our PDS system.
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Strangely, the anti-Wall Street protests going on all over the United States have not picked up traction in India. One would have thought this would be good grist to the drama mill. Also, given how Indian TV went to town when pop star Michael Jackson died, his murder trial is being largely ignored, in spite of all the dramatic revelations on a daily basis.
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This is a particularly Mumbai-related complaint. The Navratri season is almost at the end and most newspapers have concentrated only on Durga Puja pandals all over the city. Where are all the pictures of garba and dandiya? I hear and see the dancing in real life but cannot find it in my newspapers? What is going on? I understand that the media is chockfull of Bengalis and people from East India, but as a hardened Mumbaikar (please ignore my name and its implications in your mind), I do expect to see Navratri represented in my newspapers. -
Dainik Jagran is Publication #1 in IRS 2011Q2
By A Correspondent
The numbers from the latest round of the Indian Readership Survey are out as the Media Research Users Council and Hansa Research announced the findings of the second quarter of 2011.
Top 10 PublicationsÂ
(All figues in 000s)
Publication Language Periodicity 2011 Q1 2011 Q2 DainikJagran Hin D 15910 16393 DainikBhaskar Hin D 14016 14174 Hindustan Hin D 11810 11985 MalayalaManorama Mal D 9938 9962 AmarUjala Hin D 8747 8891 Lokmat Mar D 7486 7595 The Times Of India Eng D 7442 7471 Daily Thanthi Tam D 7187 7290 Rajasthan Patrika Hin D 7033 6941 Mathrubhumi Mal D 6800 6690 Top 10 Dailies
(All figues in 000s)
Publication Language Periodicity 2011 Q1 2011 Q2 DainikJagran Hin D 15910 16393 DainikBhaskar Hin D 14016 14174 Hindustan Hin D 11810 11985 MalayalaManorama Mal D 9938 9962 AmarUjala Hin D 8747 8891 Lokmat Mar D 7486 7595 The Times Of India Eng D 7442 7471 Daily Thanthi Tam D 7187 7290 Rajasthan Patrika Hin D 7033 6941 Mathrubhumi Mal D 6800 6690 Â
Top 10 Magazines
(All figues in 000s)
Publication Language Periodicity 2011 Q1 2011 Q2 Vanitha Mal F 2653 2671 PratiyogitaDarpan Hin M 2027 2154 SarasSalil Hin F 1945 2039 India Today Eng W 1650 1724 MalayalaManorama Mal W 1413 1393 Cricket Samrat Hin M 984 1213 MeriSaheli Hin M 1100 1174 India Today Hin W 1137 1144 Kumudam Tam W 1066 1066 Grehlakshmi Hin M 1031 1010 There is no change in the rankings of the various publications among the Top 10 in terms of Average Issue Readership. The Top 3 slots are taken by Hindi dailies. Dainik Jagran rules with 16,393,000 followed by Dainik Bhaskar which is at 14,174,000. Hindustan is at #3 with 11,985,000. Malayala Manorama is at #4 at 9,96,2000 while Amar Ujala and Lokmat are in the fifth and sixth positions with an average issue readership of 8,891,000 and 7,595,000 resepectively. The Times of India, the only English newspaper in the Top 10, has an average readership of 7,471,000.
The others in the Top 10 publications are: Daily Thanthi with 7,290,000, Rajasthan Patrika with 6,941,000 and Mathrubhumi at 6,690,000. The last two being the only publications in the Top 10 which have fallen in comparison to the first quarter numbers.
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We have to be innovators as much as publishers, said outgoing FIPP Chairman and India Today group CMD, Aroon Purie WMC 2011: We have to be innovators as much as publishers: Aroon Purie
By Shruti Pushkarna
Addressing delegates at the 38th FIPP World Magazine Congress in New Delhi, Aroon Purie, FIPP
Chairman and Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, India Today, said much had changed since he first joined FIPP at the Paris World Magazine Congress 2000. He believes, “India has arrived at the world stage and the fact that the World Magazine Congress is being held in Delhi is a reflection of that.†Mr Purie leaves the chairmanship of FIPP at the end of the Congress.
Compared to 2000, when the Indian media space had not opened up to the world, in 2011, the media space in India is bustling with activity. With 10, 500 newspapers and 58,100 magazines registered in this country, Mr Purie emphasized, “Although newspapers are shutting down in most parts of the world, and most cities have only one newspaper; in a place like Delhi, you can get 16 English newspapers delivered to your doorstep and there are 10 Hindi language newspapers. I don’t think that’s possible anywhere in the world.â€
The demographics in the Indian market, assured Mr Purie, will make any publisher “salivateâ€. We have 22 official languages which means you have that many more languages to publish in. In that sense, we are like Europe, except Europe has a population of only 739 million and ours is 1.2 billion.â€
India, Purie further added, is a country “straddles many centuries simultaneouslyâ€. “That is our
uniqueness in a way. Not far from here you’re likely to see a bullock cart on the road next to a Bentley, both stuck in the same traffic jam. So it is in the media space. We happily straddle digital as well as traditional media and both are growing rapidly.â€
Citing the latest numbers, Mr Purie added, “Consider that magazine advertising is slated to grow by
a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent for the next five years. Internet connectivity, although
now low in terms of penetration, still has 100 million people accessing the net. This is expected to grow to 237 million by 2015. Smartphones now constitute only 5 to 6 percent of the total phones but this is expected to grow to a 25 percent by 2015. India has 31 million Facebook users which makes India the third largest market for Facebook. India is a country rich with promise.â€
But the uniqueness of Indian market does not take away the need to innovate. Mr Purie recalled, “When I took over FIPP two years ago as the Chairman, the mood among publishers was truly dismal. It was like watching terminal cancer patients just biting their time. There is now an aggressive optimism and a growing realization that the new technology is not a cancer but one of those injections that offer rejuvenation.â€
Mr Purie believes that tablets will be both “the saviour and the biggest challenge for magazine publishersâ€. “For us to succeed we have to know now to design content for eyes, fingers and ears too, and provide an immersive experience to our consumers,†he said.
Drawing a parallel with this year’s theme, ‘The 360 Opportunity’, Mr Purie reiterated the need to
integrate the traditional models of content with new technology and new platforms.
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New categories of generic top level domains are to be introduced for brands, communities and cities Get set for .Lux or .Nirma. Even .TOI, .HTMedia, .Bhaskar, .Jagran, .Zee, .Star, .Colors… .Mahuaa!
By A Correspondent
It could open the floodgates to a new type of brandwar.
New generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are set to be introduced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers (ICANN) for the categories of brands, communities and cities and regions.
Applications for the first round of new gTLDs will open on January 12, 2012 and run until April 12, 2012. During this time frame, organizations will be able to propose and apply for new generic top-level domains associated with particular interests or business sectors.
Mr Rod Beckstorm, President and CEO, ICANN said this at a seminar organized jointly by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) in New Delhi on Friday.
These domain names are likely to help organizations enhance branding, revenue, security, and user interaction. The availability of new gTLDs will create a unique opportunity for fast-acting organizations to define and acquire their own online namespace. With this brand owners, such as corporations, sports teams, and other high-profile entities can protect their brands and trademarks, enhance brand trust, and create new ways to extend their brand and services to partners, resellers, and customers. Groups of like-minded organizations that share common missions, goals, and challenges can promote commercial or non-commercial offerings to better promote, protect, guide, and serve their communities. Cities and regions can promote greater recognition of their areas, city names, town and other geographical indiactors.
In his opening remarks, Mr N Ravi Shankar, Additional Secretary, DIT said that the seminar is a crucial step that will determine the success of the gTLD initiative for the Indian Internet Community. Although there is no doubt that it signals a positive time for the Internet users and related organizations, there will be a number of issues that will require deliberation for its smooth implementation, security and confidentiality being some of the key elements within that framework. Both stakeholders and the industry have to come forward to iron out the underlying issues and set the standards towards raising the confidence level of the user community, and thereby its wide acceptance.
Dr Govind, Senior Director, DIT highlighted the role of the DIT in creating the ecosystem for the implementation of Indian languages on the Internet. Surpassing geographical boundaries, the Internet has brought forth the new dynamics of access, dependability and communication. Of these, language has probably been one of the key issues due to its direct effect on communication and its subsequent reach. The DIT has proactively recognized this aspect and tried to address the challenges by partnering with the best R&D organizations to seek relevant solutions.
Through this announcement, ICANN has opened up its policy and permitted not only country names and Institutional names but also new Generic Top Level Domain Names (gTLDs), which were earlier limited to .edu, .com, .org etc.