MxMIndia

Tag: Mail Today

  • That's the question many are asking as the capital gets set for DNA's in May and Mumbai for Mail Today soon

    Is there room for DNA in Delhi and Mail Today in Mumbai?

     

    By Ananya Saha

     

    Mumbai-based DNA is reportedly galloping ahead towards the capital. Launched on July 30, 2005, in Mumbai, DNA (short for Daily News & Analysis) is an English broadsheet daily owned by Diligent Media Corporation, now an Essel Group company. With presence in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Indore, the recently refreshed daily is scheduled to be in Delhi on May 13. While NCR is seen as a battleground for the English heavyweights Times of India and Hindustan Times, many English dailies do not boast of good readership numbers in this market. Does the Delhi market need yet another English daily?

     

    Sundeep Nagpal

    “I don’t think there is too much room for another English daily in Delhi, at least in terms of readership,” says Sundeep Nagpal, Founder-Director of Stratagem Media, an independent media agency. “The English daily readership as a category, went up by about 5% around the turn of the last decade, but it’s back to the level that it was at, in 2008. However, what seems to be happening in most major markets, is that they seem to be able to absorb additional circulation to some extent. So, basically this suggests fragmentation,” Mr Nagpal adds.

     

    Anwesh Bose, Senior Vice President- Media, DDB Mudra is of the view that DNA is launching Delhi more with an image perspective in mind than revenues, for now. “With the Delhi launch they would be able to call themselves a national daily, finally,” he said. DNA has plans to eventually be present in all the four metros, and then launch its financial daily too in these markets. The Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Indore editions are franchised to the Dainik Bhaskar group, formerly joint venture partner of Zee in Diligent Media.

     

    Anwesh Bose

    But to capture readers and advertisers in Delhi, DNA would have to be aggressive in its positioning, and promotions, and adopt a push and pull strategy. As Mr Nagpal viewed it, DNA will have to create a market of its own and that would mostly happen in terms of a share of time spent on reading, and not as much in terms of new readers. Meanwhile, DNA has firmed up its team in Delhi with senior journalist Saikat Datta being appointed as the Resident Editor.

     

    Mr Bose said, “DNA would have to step into Delhi with deep pockets as they need to sustain for a long period of time before they can see profitability. Their strategy ideally should be of first of all establishing themselves as a brand that stands for something.” The new daily, according to him would have to come up with interesting ways of increasing their circulation, since the old methods of free gifting on long-term subscription does not hold any value anymore.

     

    While DNA is planning to enter Delhi, the capital’s compact daily newspaper – Mail Today – is getting set for a Mumbai launch this year. Mumbai has seen a reasonable healthy growth of 40 percent in readership of English dailies over the last six years, whereas Delhi has been at about 18 percent only, vis-a-vis 2005, asserts Mr Nagpal.

     

    Having launched in Chandigarh recently, Mail Today will have to compete with Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror in Mumbai.

     

    AS Raghunath

    AS Raghunath, a senior print media brand consultant based in the capital, is of the view that Mail Today will be able to carve the niche in Mumbai. He said, “The Chandigarh and Delhi editions of Mail Today usually have a front ad jacket. So they do have a permanent source of revenue. Content-wise, Mail Today is a mixed bag and carries an ‘exclusive’, usually every day, which no other daily has. Even Twitter and Facebook communities quote Mail Today. Also, given the fact that Mumbai is a multi-newspaper market with English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati dailies and publications, I am sure Mail Today will be able to carve a niche for itself.” He further added that while size will not be a challenge for Mail Today, any daily going in Mumbai would probably not add numerically to the market.

     

    On Mail Today’s stint in Delhi, Mr Bose remarked, “Mail Today is by no measure a success in Delhi… although, they have tried their best. It is bought more on relationship with the India Today Group than because of its content differentiation.” Mr Nagpal concurs that for a large cross-section of advertisers, Mail Today did not offer a unique/significant enough benefit.

     

    According to Mr Nagpal, “Mumbai Mirror (MM) has been able to create a huge dent in the market”. “It has stalled other competitors right where they were in their tracks and even eaten away their share considerably over the last five years, so I think MM is quite a success. But that does not mean that every new tabloid will do as well” he added. Mr Bose, however, holds a different view. He said, “Even with the might of TOI behind it, Mumbai Mirror could not make a huge dent, therefore it will be an uphill task for Mail Today to achieve success.” Mr Nagpal is of the view that Mumbai ought to be an easier market for Mail Today, for a whole lot of other reasons such as being more cosmopolitan, more adaptable, etc.

     

    The advertisers, obviously, would watch with interest as to the direction in which each of these publications grow in the respective markets. “It is sure that a lot of advertisers would get free space or space at a very marginal cost to begin with as the publications would want the advertisers to sample their product as well as it becomes a talking point with other advertisers for the publication. Also, there would be a lot of freebies during the circulation drive, so the consumer is going to make merry,” opined Mr Bose.

     

    Success or not, only time will tell. But it is sure a sign of healthy growth for the print sector. As Mr Bose concluded, “Print has seen a growth in 2012, where it grew by 9 percent compared to 2011. This year print would gain more as a lot of TV-friendly categories have shown interest in print, primarily to drive sales in a period of slowdown.”

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Ranjona Banerji: Media double faults in Paes-Bhupathi match

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    After years of working with city reporters, I accepted the fact that many grappled to understand the concept of “presumption of innocence”: If the police made an accusation against someone, why then it had to be true. But, of course, every accused has the right to defence. And while reporting a story, journalists are supposed to be objective. If they cannot provide both sides of a dispute, they must explain to the reader why they have failed.

     

    But in the initial rounds of this rather unfortunate fight in Indian tennis, where Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna have refused to partner India’s top tennis player Leander Paes in the 2012 London Olympics, the media started out batting for Bhupathi alone. In what appears to be a well-thought-out campaign, the doubles pair of Bhupathi and Bopanna sent out a series of letters and emails signalling their refusal to play with Paes even before the All Indian Tennis Association decided on the Olympic team. Several newspapers and news channels did not even make a willy-nilly attempt to contact Paes.

     

    The exceptions are possibly DNA and Headlines Today, who got in touch with Paes’s father. But for the most part, it was about the terrible wrong that was about to be done to Bhupathi and Bopanna – being forced to play with Paes for the Olympics. Mail Today and The Times of India seemed like they had stakes in Bhupathi’s career.

     

    These pressure tactics appeared to have failed and the AITA decided to pair Bhupathi with Paes. This is where objectivity completely failed India’s sports journalists. Bhupathi came on air and was quoted in print making all kinds of allegations against Paes. The Times of India at last informed us that they could not contact Paes. Therefore, the story remained one-sided.

     

    Bhupathi and Bopanna meanwhile, perhaps emboldened by this out-and-out media support stated firmly that if either had to partner Paes, they were willing to forgo the Olympics. Despite the media’s usual pattern of extreme jingoism, even this display of lack of country love, did not deter the pro-Bhupathi-Bopanna journalists. One cannot state that sports journalists are less jingoistic than the rest – we see what they do to cricketers regularly. In fact I can guarantee that any top cricketer who refused to play for India because he did not like his team members would be hung, drawn and quartered by the media. By the way, cricket is not even an Olympic sport and technically, when Indian cricketers play, they represent the board. Not so for tennis, where professional players put aside career considerations to play Davis Cup and the Olympics.

     

    However, as the week of allegations by Bhupathi and Bopanna came to a close, the media slowly started to turn. Paes may have contributed to that by issuing a statement that he was willing to go by the AITA’s decision. The Indian Express and Mid-Day started to look at being fair to all concerned. The Hindustan Times later also presented a larger picture. The Times of India came to the party last – but more on its edit pages than its sports pages.

     

    Where a reader should have been given perspective on this battle and information to negotiate through this unseemly fight, he or she got a minefield of accusations from only one side. Now the villain of the piece is apparently the AITA as Bhupathi has approached the sports ministry to step in. Bhupathi has accused the selection committee of being a bunch of bureaucrats who know nothing about tennis. To me they appear to be former players – perhaps not of the stature of Bhupathi but tennis players nonetheless, a fact which needs to be pointed out in the media.

     

    Monday night saw Times Now’s Arnab Goswami ask Mahesh Bhupathi some tough questions – some of which he struggled to answer. This is the first time that Bhupathi’s accusations were questioned. Later, the fathers of Paes and Bhupathi were on Times Now, where Paes Senior pointed out that Bhupathi was not blameless in this battle, while Bhupathi Senior tried to shrug that off and say the Olympic riddle had to be solved not the mistakes made by the boys.

     

    Appalling as this ego battle between India’s top tennis players may be, the media’s partisan stand has been as appalling.

     

  • In Freaking News, which appears every Tuesday and Friday, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Troll travails thanks to Twitter

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Warren Buffett’s research has shown that while people may no longer read mainline newspapers, they are still loyal to their local community papers. Or at least that’s why Hathaway has invested in any number of community papers in the US but will not put money into the mainstream media. The same research also shows that people who do not buy mainline papers will read them online but not if they have to pay.

     

    This is a lesson about the internet that the traditional media in the west especially has yet to understand. In India, newspapers are free online but even they have irksome proceedings – like having to register to read the e-paper format like The Hindu. Others like Mail Today only have an e-paper format and no website which is also annoying.

     

    The freedom of the internet is what makes it appealing – even if no more than 200 people gathered to protest internet curbs – and this includes freedom from opening the wallet.

     

    The Huffington Post and Daily Beast both every effectively use social media like twitter and Facebook to push their stories – the Indian media is not quite so effective. Although Firstpost (web) and Mid-Day (paper) are not too bad and Firstpost also has the advantage of a fan base which retweets.

     

    The Times, London is a downer because it requires a one pound payment to open any story and the question is not of the amount so much as the procedure. This also stops The Times from reaching a wider audience as its stories cannot get picked up websites which collate news of a certain kind or allow readers to pass interesting articles along.

     

    * * *

     

    Until someone invents something better, Twitter remains the best disseminator of news as it happens. There are disadvantages, as passionately delineated by Namita Bhandare in the Hindustan Times (http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/SocialMedia-Updates/Running-away-from-the-trolls/SP-Article1-868619.aspx). Bhandare’s problem is mainly to do with the viciousness of internet trolls and she has clearly suffered. But of course it could be argued that the only reason that these “trolls” are so annoying/frightening is because of the enormous access that the internet provides. These “trolls” exist in real life also but we may not meet them that often. The internet cannot invent new ways of human behaviour.

     

    This response to Bhandare’s article by someone who calls himself a “troll” (aah, irony thou are not dead in India yet) is also illuminating  http://chamchaa.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/an-open-letter-to-namita-bhandare/.

     

    * * *

     

    From my personal experience as a columnist for many years I can safely say that people will insult you if they want via any medium of communication open to them. Twitter is just one more. I for one have got death threats, legal notices envelopes filled with talcum powder pretending to be anthrax and plenty of questions raised about the sexual habits of my ancestors and in the old days, all these came via the post office. So what, say I?

     

    Years of reading letters to the editor (in practically every publication I have been part of) has at least made me realise that people are dying to be heard and deeply resentful when their voices are blocked – or when they perceive it as such. Twitter gives them such a wonderful platform to vent and get rid off their frustrations. Worse than any “troll” remains the famous Mumbai postcard writer with the initials ‘MSK’ whose imagination and capacity for personal insults was prodigious. I believe he is no more and his loss is deeply felt. These are the people who make becoming a journalist worthwhile.

     

    Yes, there are offensive people on Twitter but one can either not encourage them or just shut them off!

     

  • Senior journalist and media-watcher Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on what the Aditya Birla investment in the India Today group means for the Indian media

    Loss of plurality is worrying: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

    Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

    By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

     

    This sort of an acquisition is part of a growing trend of ‘corporatization’ of the media where big business houses such as the Aditya Birla Group and the Reliance Industries group are investing into existing media groups. Through this process of consolidation, they are also bailing out these groups.

     

    The Raghav Behl-led Network 18 and Ramoji Rao-led Eenadu are now part of one big conglomerate because Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has bailed out both by pumping in a huge amount of money. On paper, it appears as if they are still separate corporate entities, which they are, as per the laws of the land. But the kind of associations they have struck gives an impression that they are now going to work like a conglomerate. Now this is exactly what has happened in the case of Mr Aroon Pourie who heads the India Today group which is also going to be one major conglomerate. So what we are seeing, in that sense, is the ‘cartelization’ of the media. There are cartels being formed, there are oligopolies being formed.

     

    The recession in the west has led to shrinking of advertising expenditures for the media in India and across the world especially after 2008, and this has had a direct impact on the fortunes of media organizations. So this process of consolidation has got expedited. What this means is that the media in India is going to become less plural, it’s going to be dominated by relatively fewer groups. What you are really seeing is, large corporate groups exercising greater dominance on the media. Now there are two implications.

     

    Also read:

    AV Birla group buys 27.5% in India Today group

     

    Birla may use personal money for buy, Mail Today may now launch editions in Mumbai, other metros

     

    Why media purists needn’t worry about Kumar Mangalam Birla’s 27.5 % in Living Media

    One is, of course, you are finding telecom companies (Mr Aditya Birla also happens to be the head of Idea and Mr Mukesh Ambani’s RIL is a major player in the broadband wireless access space), which are providing you communications, are also now playing an important role in companies that produce content. So the content providers and content distributors are coming together. This, in my opinion, is going to result in a loss of heterogeneity, resulting in a loss of plurality. In a sense, the oligopolies that are going to be formed will also impact the listeners of content, the viewers of content, or the readers of content. The content they get will be less heterogeneous.

     

    The other part of the story is that these companies are also big advertisers. Therefore, the clout of the advertiser will go up. As I said, the telecom service providers are now becoming important stakeholders in companies that are producing content. So the distributors of content are becoming stakeholders in the producers of content. Similarly what you also see at another level, the companies which are big advertisers are also now becoming the owners of the media. So in my opinion, these trends towards ‘cartelization’, or the formation of these giant corporate conglomerates is not going to lead to greater plurality as far as the consumers of content are concerned.

     

    The numbers of TV channels and newspapers and websites often give you a very deceptive kind of a picture and the capital is a classic example of that.Delhiis the only city in the world with 16 English language daily newspapers. This gives you a misleading picture, that readers of English dailies inDelhihave a huge choice. But the fact of the matter is that two newspapers, The Times of India and Hindustan Times would account for well over three-fourths of the total market of all English daily newspapers. And if you add to that Economic Times, then these three publications put together would account for more than 80 per cent of the total circulation of all English newspapers in India. So, in terms of numbers it looks good, but if you look at the structure of the market, you see few dominant players.

     

    In India, unlike in other countries of the world, like US, UK or Australia, there are no cross-media restrictions. In other countries, there are both vertical as well as horizontal restrictions. Vertical restrictions mean that the content producer and the content distributor are different companies/groups. In India, the same guys who are producing content are also distributing the content. You have the DMK controlling the distribution channel and also producing the television channel; you have Zee News producing news and also controlling Dish TV. There are clear conflicts of interest that arise if your distributor and the provider are the same. That’s only one part of the story.

     

    The other is what is called horizontal cross media restrictions. That means, the same company dominates all forms of the media, like print, radio, TV, in the same geographical area. In our country we don’t have any legal restrictions on cross media holdings. As far as the media is concerned, the group concept or the conglomerate concept does not operate in our country. So you have Bennett Coleman Ltd which brings out various print publications, and then you have Times Global Broadcasting which brings out the television content. These two companies happen to be controlled by the same set of people. But because the legal restrictions that exist in India apply to individual entities and not to conglomerates, effectively you have no cross-media restriction.

     

    Speaking of editorial content, editors will not publish or broadcast anything that would go against the interest of the corporate that controls; these would become subtle forms of censorship and control. For instance, Living Media which includes, Aaj Tak, India Today, Headlines Today and Mail Today, these publications or these broadcasters are unlikely to publish anything negative that could affect the business interests of the Aditya Birla Group. So that could be an eminent danger, that degrees of freedom that editors and content providers would enjoy, would get curtailed not just because of the pattern of ownership but also because the owners of major conglomerates are also major advertisers.

     

    Even if on paper, the editors have the autonomy and independence to publish what they like, there could be subtle forms of censorship wherein editors would feel constrained or would think twice before publishing any story that could in any way go against the interest of the promoters of the company that control these media conglomerates.

     

    I am optimistic about the future of media in India but I am also concerned about the fact there is loss of heterogeneity, loss of choices to the consumer.

     

    (As told to Shruti Pushkarna)

     

    Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is a senior journalist, editor and broadcaster based in New Delhi.

     

  • The Aditya Birla group investments may help India Today invest in launching editions of its newspaper Mail Today in Mumbai and other metros.

    Birla may use personal money for buy, Mail Today may now launch editions in Mumbai, other metros

    The Aditya Birla group investments may help India Today invest in launching editions of its newspaper Mail Today in Mumbai and other metros.

     

    By A Corresdpondent

     

    Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of Aditya Birla Group, has bought a 27.5% stake in Aroon Purie-controlled Living Media India, the publisher and owner of India Today magazine and Aaj Tak television channel. Mr Birla will use his personal money to invest in the New Delhi-based group, which straddles the entire media chain, from television to magazines to tabloids.

     

    A statement from the metals-to-retail group said Birla has agreed to join the Living Media group as a financial investor. It did not specify the price for the deal or the valuation.

     

    However, investment bankers close to the transaction said the deal has been finalised for Rs 600-700 crore, valuing the media group at Rs 2,400-2,800 crore. Mumbai-based investment bank Ambit Corp was the advisor to the deal.

     

    This is the second big investment by an industrialist in the media space. In January, affiliates of Reliance Industries agreed to buy a large stake in the companies of Raghav Bahl, the promoter of Network18 and owner of channels such as CNBC-TV18 and CNN-IBN. The investment was worth over Rs 1,500 crore.

     

    TV Today is listed on the stock exchanges, but it is not clear whether Birla’s personal investment companies will now have to make an open offer to buy 26% from public shareholders.

     

    The financial investment also marks the realisation of Kumar Mangalam Birla’s cherished dream of owning a media company. “The media sector is a sunrise sector from an investment point of view. I believe that Living Media India offers one of the best opportunities for growth and value creation,” Birla said in a release.

     

    Birla made an unsuccessful entry into the entertainment space by launching a movie and TV production company, Applause Entertainment, in 2003. The company, which produced the acclaimed movie Black , was closed down in 2009 after the downturn in the entertainment industry sparked off by the global recession.

     

    Living Media will use the cash from the deal to expand its presence in media. It may now look at launching its New Delhi-based tabloid, Mail Today, in other metros, including Mumbai, according to persons close to the company.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

  • Mail Today, a product of the joint venture of the IndiaToday group-and Daily Mail of London, has entered the UK with a London edition

    Mail Today launches in London

    By A Correspondent

     

    The large population of Indian descent in and around London have reason to cheer. Mail Today, a product of the joint venture of London’s Daily Mail and the India Today group, has announced its entry to London. The paper had launched in New Delhi four-and-a-half-years ago and Chandigarh more recently.

     

    “Targeting the large south Asian population in London, Mail Today wants to connect with the diaspora by bringing the best of Indian news packaged in a modern avatar,” Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief of the paper, wrote in the e-edition of the newspaper.

     

    British citizens of Indian descent as well as the growing number of Indian nationals studying or working in England have reason to cheer given the India Today group’s pre-eminence and of course Daily Mail’s local leadership.

     

  • Mr Thappa, who recently left Mail Today, will be working at Mindshare as Leader – Client Leadership, South Asia.

    Rahul Thappa is back @ Mindshare

    By Akash Raha

     

    After his stint at Mail Today, Rahul Thappa has once again joined Mindshare. Mr Thappa will be working at Mindshare as Leader – Client Leadership, South Asia, reporting directly to Mindshare CEO Ravi Rao.

     

    In his last stint with Mail Today, the compact Delhi daily which is a joint venture between India Today Group and Associated Newspapers (ANL), publisher of Daily Mail, UK, he was the COO of the organization. He had joined the newspaper in May 2011, taking over from the then-COO, Mr Suresh Balakrishnan.

     

    Mr Thappa’s earlier stints include working as the Managing Director at Mindshare Malaysia; Business Director, Entertainment Sports & Partnerships at Group M Malaysia; Business Director at Mindshare Malaysia; and Planning & Buying Director, Team Unilever at Mindshare, Malaysia.

     

    MxM had received no official confirmation from Mindshare at the time of this report.

     

  • It's announcement time at LMG: Suresh Balakrishnan returns, Premjeet Sodhi to replace Sathya and Sudha Natrajan elevated

    Suresh Balakrishna to join LMG, Premjeet Sodhi likely to replace NP Sathyamurthy (who is joining Mudra)

    By A Correspondent

     

    Senior mediaperson and former chief operating officer of Mail Today, Suresh Balakrishnan is getting back to the Lintas Media Group fold. He is likely to be CEO of one of the agency’s arms and will report to LMG chairperson Lynn de Souza.

     

    Confirming the news to MxMIndia, Mr Balakrishnan said he’s looking forward to returning to LMG after a gap of nearly a decade.

     

    In his 25-plus year career, Mr Balakrishnan started his career in publishing with The Times of India group and spent a fair amount of media agency business at Initiative Media. After he quit Mail Today last year, he took a sabbatical and taught media management at the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communications amongst others.

     

    Meanwhile, as reported by MxMIndia on December 15, N P Sathyamurthy is moving to Mudra. He is likely to be replaced by Premjeet Sodhi who is currently with LMG as president, The Collaborative. Yesterday, LMG also announced the elevation of Deputy CEO Sudha Natrajan to CEO of Lintas Initiative Media.

     

    Image courtesy: Stratagem Media

     

  • Rahul Thappa, COO and Bharat Bhushan, Editor of Mail Today confirmed this development to MxMIndia

    Rahul Thappa, Bharat Bhushan quit Mail Today

    By Akash Raha

     

    Rahul Thappa, COO of Mail Today has quit the group. Mr Thappa had joined Mail Today in May 2011, taking over from the then-COO Suresh Balakrishnan. Rahul Thappa is serving his last week at Mail Today after which he will move to his new organization, which he refused to name at the moment. When asked by MxM India, he confirmed that he has quit.

     

    He said “I’m thankful to the board of Mail Today Newspapers Pvt Ltd for having given me the opportunity to head the operations of the publication as its COO. It was a pleasure working with the entire MT team and the operational learning from having managed a daily newspaper has added immensely to my repertoire of skills. I am confident that the newspaper will grow into a force to reckon with in the years ahead. My new assignment is in conformance with my long-term career objectives. I shall be able to speak about my assignment in the weeks to follow.”

     

    Mr Thappa earlier worked as the Managing Director at Mindshare Malaysia. He also held a key position at the India Today Group, where he reported to Mr Ashish Bagga, CEO, India Today Group.

     

    Bharat Bhushan, Editor, Mail Today has also quit the organization. Mr Bhushan, too, confirmed this development, but refused to make any further comments. Mr Bhushan was a part of Mail Today’s launch team and was earlier the Editor of Telegraph – Delhi edition.

     

    Mail Today, the compact daily in Delhi, is a joint venture of India Today Group and Associated Newspapers (ANL), publisher of Daily Mail, UK.

  • Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year with 104-page edition

    Mail Today celebrates 4th anniversary

    By Akash Raha

     

    Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year that has seen overwhelming change. The daily compact will celebrate the milestone by putting together a 56-page section dedicated to the ‘The Game Changers’. This section accompanied the main edition of 48 pages today.

     

    In the pages of the anniversary edition, the Mail Today team of reporters and editors across the country will profile a diverse lot of people. From Anna Hazare, who has reset the country’s political agenda, to Mamata Banerjee, whose gale force swept away the Left bastion in West Bengal, from the Supreme Court of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, which has turned the constitution into a force for change, to Subramaniam Swamy, the unraveller of the 2G spectrum scam, these change agents have given us reasons for hope even in the nation’s darkest moments.

     

    Speaking about the anniversary issue and the way ahead, Rahul Thappa, COO, Mail today said “Mail Today in its own inimitable way has been a harbinger of change in the newspaper industry over the last four years. Our fearless content and often irreverent voice has offered the new Indian an intelligent option to the content they otherwise had be contented with. We have grown from strength to strength over the last four years and in doing so have defied conventional thinking. We have made a significant dent in the Delhi/NCR market and shall continue to consolidate our strength in the High Net Worth homes of the region. Growth is the only imperative for us and we shall be a harbinger of change to in other parts of the country as well. In our fifth year we plan to continue to delight our readers and surprise our competition and in doing so cement our positioning as the voice of the new Indian.”

    Even though corruption may have dominated the news headlines, but these harbingers of change drivers, in their own ways, have redefined the rules of engagement in their chosen fields and made stellar (and sometime debatable) contributions to our lives and lifestyle. These men and women have changed the way we relate to politics, business, sports, films, fashion, cars, books, gadgets and gizmos, and the arts. The anniversary edition hereby celebrates the inevitable fact of contemporary India.

    The anniversary issue celebrates the achievements of many remarkable Indians too who have catalyzed change without getting the media attention they deserve. People such as Kumar Mangalam Birla, who has refused to pay ‘facilitation money’ despite losing out on project, or Suneet Singh Kohli, the creator of the world’s cheapest tablet, or the UP Lokayukta Justice (Retd) N.K. Mehrotra, who has got Mayawati to suspend four of her corrupt ministers, or Mahaveer Golechha, the AIIMS scientist who has invented a candidate drug for the cure of Alzheimer’s Disease, or even the farmers of Bhatta Parsaul, who at a tremendous personal loss took on the state government and a powerful lobby of builders to make land acquisition at just rates a national issue.

    The game changers in politics, government and business aren’t the only ones who have given us our moments of celebration. We’ve had Ekta Kapoor venture into territories where no film production company had gone before and Sameer Gaur pull off this year’s biggest international sporting spectacle — the F1; we’ve seen the hitherto unknown Abhinay Deo push the creative envelope with Delhi Belly and Kalki Koechlin become the unlikeliest of Bollywood success stories; we have celebrated Prabal Gurung’s designs being worn by Michelle Obama and the elevation of fashion designer Manish Arora as the creative director of the Franco-Spanish design house Paco Rabanne, making him the first Indian to head the creative side of a leading international high-street fashion label.

    Mail Today was launched on November 16, 2007 in Delhi by the India Today group, in collaboration with Associated Newspaper of the UK (publishers of Daily Mail). As per the IRS 2011 Q2 figures, Mail Today showed a growth in readership and is firmly placed in the number three position in Delhi market.

  • Rahul Thappa on ‘How to Boil a Frog’, ‘Madhyam Marg’ and the ‘Elasticity of Doom’.

    ‘Diplomacy? Not for Mail Today’

    Rahul Thappa, COO, Mail Today in a candid conversation with MxM India’s Akash Raha.

    Q: For a long time you had been in Malaysia, how does it feel to come back to India and join the India Today Group?

    Well, these are two different questions and I will take them separately. Coming back to India… I don’t think I ever had a big departure from India. Perhaps, there a few more cars on the road and lots of development since then, but the people are still familiar and the same. Moreover, I was in India fairly often even when I was working abroad, so coming back wasn’t a shock. As far as the rest of the family is concerned, and it was important decision for them too, they have been doing very good. Whereas joining India Today Group is concerned, I think it has been an excellent experience and a very good opportunity thus far. It is one of the best media houses and also one of the oldest. Usually in media, the oldest have the advantage of having settled down well and not being in a state of flux, like many new media organizations trying to find their DNA. So it’s been good on both accounts.

    Q: What is change of tactic that you are adopting, since you have been on the other side of the business too – Media Planning?

    How I characterize it is, I came from the demand side (for media) which would be the advertiser, advertising agency side of the business. And now, I have come to the supply side. I know how the demand side works. I know the psyche of the demand side and that helps me to understand on our end how our supply is to be sold to the demand side, what changes they may need to facilitate the exchange better etc. The knowledge helps us in building and positioning our product better in their mindset and in the way they conceive our product.  Since, we all have an ad-revenue model it is essential know more about the demand side. If we were a subscription based model, it would, perhaps be not as essential. I think that is what I bring to the table apart from the fact that I have been in senior managerial roles for a while now which helps me shape an organization; you could call us (Mail Today) a start up considering that we have spent merely three and a half years in the industry. I hope my past experience will help shape our team further as we will have exciting times ahead. We bring a strong differentiated product in the market and it’s doing very well. I am not saying it will meet the main stream newspapers head-on, as it was never meant to. It might very well contest against the magazines. It was purposed differently and not to take on the big boys on, and our aim was never so. It might look like such a product, but our content is packaged very differently, unlike other newspapers. Hindustan Times and Times of India are everything for everyone. And anyone who wants to read an English newspaper can pick them up. They are fairly democratic that ways and the entry barrier for those who want to come in is low. They have something for everybody. However, we are not everything for everyone… Our content is curated and our content is for a certain demographic.  And in that demographic itself we have several focal points. SEC as we know it today is not as flat as it is… IRS in the coming years with developed and enhanced methodology will aptly point out the fact where they will have a more living standard measure gauge of SEC’s rather than educational and occupational parameters. So if I were to see SEC as a pyramid, which it rightly is, then we as a product, we cater to the top half of that pyramid. Hence, we will not go deep in the market, because we don’t intend to…We don’t intend to access that audience. By choice we have defined our own playing field and it is, in a way, a niche product. We have lower values in mass product and yet, we are a subscription based product. Since we are a subscription based model in time we will have the leeway or flexibility to depend less on ad revenue and focus more on subscription.

    Q: So what are some of the changes that Mail Today has seen since you joined the group and what are some of the changes that the group is likely to see in future?

    Change in management doesn’t mean change in the way how a company is run. There are only subtle changes where efficiencies are creamed out of each system. A person X will look in efficiencies in one place and a person Y will look at efficiencies at another. That is how they are made and that is how they think. But yes, since I have joined, I have looked for efficiencies in certain places… Given the state of economy currently, everyone is making sure across all boards that all processes are running smoothly and efficiently. But a change in management doesn’t change a way in which a newspaper works… the DNA of our product can’t be changed. As we learn about the market, consumers and demand side of the industry, if any process needs to be changed/improved then so be it.

    Q: Efficiency since the slowdown has become an euphemism for job cuts, is that what you are hinting at?

    No, job cuts happens when one process grows faster, builds up fat and then realizing that that process wasn’t necessary to begin with . But in a media industry all processes are equal and that is not what I am hinting at.

    Q: Mail Today began as a paper for the newer audience – the office goers, to put more literally, the metro commuters. Being a ‘compact’ it is easier to handle and read? Are we right in understanding that this focus still continues?

    No, our compact size had nothing to do with the ease at which it could be handled in tight situation, like the model Mid Day in Mumbai. At least, that was never the overt intention. However, if does mean that a person travelling in a metro finds it easier to read, then so be it. One can observe a trend that successful international newspaper are or have switched to compacts such as Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian… One, it is good for savings in terms of the newsprint cost on the other hand it is also fairly easy to read. Ease of reading, pleasing to the eye, logistical advantages, cost advantages… We think that the newspaper industry can take this (compact) route in the years to come. We have taken a bold decision first and we are proud of that. We have taken the first step towards taking compact forward this format that has been a trend internationally too.  If people say only broadsheet is a serious daily then they are out of date… their size has got nothing to do with the seriousness of content. That’s just stereotyping. One cannot compartmentalize the products content by its size.

    Q: Talking about content… Mail Today was known as the ‘Paper Tiger’.

    Yes that focus still continues and will always continue because that is the belief on which media organizations are built. There is no ‘Madhyam Marg’ to it for us…which is what we call our competitors. They are large and fairly entrenched and they take the ‘Madhyam Marg’, or what we will call, being diplomatic. And we don’t believe in that. We tell a story straight, take the bull by the horns… several idioms come to my mind, but in essence we are very direct. We say what we mean and mean what we say, whatever be the consequences.

    Q: Not too long ago Mail Today used to have their circulation number on the masthead. We see that it is not there anymore… Any specific reasons for this change?

    We can put it back there… that is not a problem. But if it becomes two million and two hundred copies I can’t change it every day. It is a little tedious too and is nothing short of a live ticker. We started it only to tell that we were approaching a milestone and thereafter, that we have crossed it. Printing it every day will not make any difference to anybody’s mindset. Eventually, it will become a blind spot. We are currently at over two lakh copies and when we reach our next big milestone, we will put it up too. But keeping it up there permanently solves no purpose. It was for our detractors who said that we won’t grow. The market is growing and with it we are growing too. The market is not only growing only vertically but also horizontally… and there is enough space for us to grow in it. Everything is being diced up and segmentalized according to age, gender and so many other parameters. So the way media is going to grow is with more choice and there is going to be space for everybody; in fact, journalists will have far more trouble keeping their roots. But getting back to your point, the numbers were just to point out to the fact that we are alive and kicking and growing at a steady rate. In three and half half years, I think the numbers we have got in this cut-throat market is phenomenal.

    Q: Since Mail Today was launched in 2007, it was said that expansion was on the cards. Especially Mumbai and Chandigarh were being talked about. Yet, the industry is still awaiting the expansion. Is it still on or has it been scrapped?

    Hopefully you will hear of it soon, expansion has always on the cards. But expansion just for the sake of expansion, what you would have seen in several publications, is something we won’t like to do. We have seen several premiere media houses which saw splits, mergers, acquisitions expanding and trying to enter into every business, launching in every market that they can think off. And look where they are, look what the recession has done to them… Yes, money has become scarce; funding has become scarce too… There are companies in the market close to 80 and 150 years old and that’s why they are successful. We won’t take that long to be successful as they are, but we will get there. But we won’t ruin our work by trying too hard to get into newer markets. Delhi is our market and we know this market and stabilizing Delhi is of critical importance, which we have done. And very soon you will hear of us launching into major markets in a major way. We don’t want to be insignificant players in several markets. We won’t go into a market just because it’s large and growing… Big newspapers which are meant for all audience types can do that but not us. We are also looking for a certain/specific audience type; be it Bhopal, Cuttack or Port Blair. However, we already have a few marked city, the plans are at place and are being deliberated by the management. And very soon you will hear of our first foray out of Delhi.

    Q: What is your annual revenue from Mail Today, and what is your revenue target for 2011-12 and what is the growth number it has seen?

    Our readership is constantly growing. As far supply side, we are growing on that front too. As far as revenue side, we are growing at high double digits. Our growth over the last year is well into 40 per cent. For us, being a relatively new organization and having faced the slowdown, and yet being in the market with such a substantial growth figure is an even bigger achievement. Otherwise the way we started in 2007, we would have been growing currently at 60-70 per cent. We would love those times to come around but till then we are fairly happy with our growth rate.

    Q: It is being said that the IRS-NRS merger are at hand. Do you think it will solve the measurement problem that the industry faces?

    It won’t solve the measurement problem but it will certainly reduce the confusion. We will have one metric to go by and it will make it easy to everybody to look for improvements. When there are two measurements, it’s like having a pound and metric systems working together. The merger won’t solve the endemic problems immediately that publications may have but it will benefit if everyone focuses on one metric. For example, the simplest thing is when you go to a client or planner or agency you might find one of them focusing on one set of data and another one on the other. You waste a lot of productive time that way, which we can now do away with. Two sets of money which was used in setting up samples can now be used to set up double the samples, hence more robust data.

    Q: What are your digital plans?  We have seen your epaper on the digital space but do you have a plan to do more on the digital space and monetize it with advertising revenue, and perhaps subscription revenue through partial pay walls etc.

    We realize that the digital era is already here, yet, none of the Indian players have been able to do anything substantial on it. But I can’t hide behind and say since it’s not working and we will not go there. Digital has become a way of life, information is dynamic and people want information at any time and at any place. When the demand will increase, so will the entire market and then, people will have many models. For example, if you have a complete pay wall it might not work, yet, if you have a partial pay wall it might just work. Also, you can focus on advertising and give content for free. Ad rates, as we see today differ for a digital pixel and a print pixel, which is not right. It is a peculiarity of mindset and it has to change. In years to come, digital will reign. Yet as I say that, I believe that physical product will co-exist. In 20 -25 years when today’s generation consuming digital grow older and new generation of people consuming arrive, print might see a little fall, yet it will co-exsist and then better product will reign. Mobile, tabs and more futuristic system will come into existence and then the sole factor will be how you reach out to a consumer throughout his day on various mediums. Answering your question, eminently, we have been a little slow on that front (going digital) because we are just a start up and we wanted our editorial to focus on the paper product first and we wanted to keep it growing. The demand side still understands print better and hence it was understandable to keep that going before we jump into anything new. We are already making plans to go digital… But we want to come up with something different… Not something regular and utility base like the other Indian websites we have today. The idea will be to be a Huffington Post equivalent, otherwise, the content and the medium will not be differentiated. For example, god-forbid, if there is a bomb-blast everyone in a matter of 10 minutes will have the news. Hence, time is not a differentiator in that space because everyone has caught up and is as fast. Wealth, is the second dimension (one could be paid, one is not) yet, there is yet to be a successful model in it. Lastly it is skill, which is where one can differentiate. A well curated news and content is important. How does an event affect a person’s life and how you add value to it, which is the skill dimension… Currently at number two, Mail Today, our parent in the UK are competing on time and content. They have most of the news and on time too… You have to see it to believe it, how they put content together, on time and seamlessly where the designing is superb.

    Q: It is interesting how you say Daily Mail is your parent, I was more expecting a term like partner.

    Yeah, they are our parent as far as the website is concerned. And then again, I could say that we have two parents, one is Daily Mail and the other is India Today group, which undoubtedly is a parent. If you see the mast head (of Mail today), one can say that they are similar. We borrow a lot from them. Our DNA in terms of look, feel and the physical self of the paper is from Daily Mail. The way the content is put together is an India Today DNA.

    Q: What is the interaction level of Daily Mail with Mail Today after three years?

    We are very interactive. In content sharing of course we are the equity partners. Apart from that, they provide us the glimpse into the future and whole lot of other learning, as to how to handle multi-national clients. They have been handling the same format for a longer duration of time than us, hence the expertise. Our relationship is a fairly active and very cohesive.

    Q: Do you think that media houses should do something to change the current overdependence on advertisement revenues? Do you think rationalizing cover prices will help? What are the challenges?

    Yes they should. The biggest challenge is, the fear that if prices are hiked circulation will be affected. For example, there are houses where there are 4-5 a paper going in each day and the fear is with a hike in price they might cut down on 1-2 paper. But I don’t really see it as fear, rather it is a affirmation of two things –How valuable your product was in that person’s life if he can do away with it? On the other hand if that person was so price elastic that he couldn’t pay another two rupees for valuable information he or she is buying the first thing in  the morning, it creates serious doubts over the buyability of the reader as a valuable asset to an advertiser. For certain advertisers selling regular day to day stuff it will be bad. But for an advertiser selling a car, it becomes interesting… Let’s say my circulation is one million. If all products become double the price, the people who drop out are for instance 300 thousand. In that case, I would value that 700,000 more than the entire 1 million. Now that 700,000 I have are taking me no matter what the cost, they are actually reading the product and see value in it. The other 300 million weren’t reading me and taking me only because I was cheap.

    My argument to the advertiser would be, as it is earlier only 700 thousand were reading the product. And hence you continue paying me as much as you were, since that’s the exact number I still have. Then, my cost comes down and my revenue stays stable and I am a little more profitable. Some of these costs can be shared with the advertisers like they will want you to, but there are other ways of doing that; by elongating their campaigns, making content for them, doing events etc.,  not by giving them a price off.  The aims should not be to talk to everyone, but to talk to fewer people and be sharper in the communication.   It is time we bite the bullet, it is time we increase our price and it is time we do something rational for ourselves rather than keep digging ourselves deeper in the pit. If two rupees a day can bring down the edifices of large organizations then it is a slap on their face. If the whole network of large newspapers is built on Rs 2 a copy then there is no point discussing their value anyway.  It speaks a lot about what you have built over the past so many years. If you have built content-based credible organizations then the consumers will read you irrespective of a Rs 2-3 price hike. It can’t do away with what I call ‘Elasticity of Doom’. ‘Elasticity of Doom’ will come irrespective of the money – Sorry, you didn’t build a strong enough organization. You can very well increase 50 paise every month for four month. Then people in the industry say that do it all together, how would it make a difference, what is the point of doing it slowly. But like one of my colleagues in Mindshare used to say, you don’t boil a frog by putting it in hot water, it jumps out. You heat it slowly, and sooner or later you can boil the frog and make a nice broth. And all publishers can do it together, 1st of every quarter, across all boards. So that one is not costlier than the other and the parity stays. So it’s possible, you just need will to do it, because the ‘Elasticity of Doom’ eventually is inevitable. The cost of paper has to rise up, it’s not a renewal source, so might as well do it right now. Especially in the paper industry there is no reverse logistic. So till reverse logistics become a part and parcel of life, you will never have cheap recycling and cheap paper. Most of the paper today gets imported and there are tariffs, company disputes etc., due to which prices will always keep rising.

    Q: Talking about lighter subjects, Mail Today comes up with interesting initiatives. What are some of the upcoming marketing initiatives that the paper has planned?

    We have planned a lot of initiatives. But unfortunately we can’t talk much about it as it is a revenue stream for us. Olympics, Delhi centenary year we plan to do a lot on a lot of topics. Delhi has its own problems and being Delhi’s own paper we will try to tackle it in the best way possible. You will see several campaigns in times to come.

    Q: On a broader note, what are the new emerging trends in print media?

    There are wiser people who can talk about trends, but there is one trend that I will talk about which is the rise of tablets. I think it’s at our doorstep right now. While it might seem very quiet… you see cheap tablets of Reliance, Beetel. Samsung too have been known to lower costs drastically. The ipad market, I feel, will grow faster than the penetration of smart phones. There is still very little Indian content on the ipad. Yes the Times of India has an ipad app and a few others too, which is good and evolving, but it is not seamless yet. It is nothing like the foreignpolicy.com apps. We were talking about consuming content at ease in a metro. Consider the iPad which collapses a newspaper to one-eighth its size. You don’t have to open it any more, you can just slide your way through the complete newspaper. There are already about 250 thousand iPads in the country by official or unofficial estimate. Every second member in our industry has an iPad. It’s just a matter of time before the market explodes, and when it does, it will be everywhere without anyone having to curate content for it. That is something we should all keep our eyes on.

    Q: Can we expect Mail Today to come out with an iPad app soon?

    Mail Today would certainly like to do it; but probably as an organization we don’t think we ‘need’ to do it right now. But we have our eyes pinned on it, and will offer a value package to our consumers if and when we think it is the right time.