Media matters and how. Lintas Media Services has churned out a comprehensive media guide, which is an analysis of media spends and buys in the year gone by. Released by Intellect, a part of the Lintas Media Group, it studies all genres; television, print, radio, internet, cinema, outdoor and gives a break up of the media environment and general media industry trends of last year.

Expansion clearly has been the mantra for the print industry all through 2005. Across publications there have been launches of editions across cities or to penetrate into the lower pop-strata. Increasing competition has brought more and more supplements everyday to seek niche reader segments. The battle of the dailies in Mumbai market is an example of the expansion drive and the result of competition adding to the product. In magazines due to the allowing of foreign direct investment (FDI) we have seen the start of foreign mastheads coming to India and this will only get faster in the years to come.

Publishers are seeing a balance between driving subscription revenues and advertising revenues. While a few have been able to push up issue prices, most others have kept the issue prices stable. Need to garner growing advertising revenues is aided by the geographical expansion and the niche targeting possible by supplements.

Print advertising had a share of 57 per cent of the total ad spends for the year 2005. The buoyant categories such as finance, education, auto, retail, etc are all set to adding a lot to the advertising revenues further for the print industry. Realising their strength in terms of ground network, most publication networks are extending their services beyond print space selling to solutions that give a combination of print advertising along with activation programmes at the ground level. Some publications are also able to extend the solution into the web space or other media depending upon the properties they own or are aligned with.

Like TV, advertising avoidance is an issue for print advertisers too and there are more and more instances of innovative advertising. Advertorials are also increasing besides all efforts to align with related content. However, these as yet form a minuscule percentage of the total advertising space though it is expected to grow in the years to come.

Readership research does not offer anything new and the issues between the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) and NRS (National Readership Survey) continues as always. There is a need for the print research to reevaluate the needs of the medium and reorient their offering.

The Times of India tops the English dailies list when it comes to the top five dailies according to IRS 2005 R2 (all India average issue readership). Hindustan Times, Hindu, Telegraph and Deccan Chronicle (in that order) follow in the list.

In the regional dailies category, Dainik Jagran rules the roost, whereas Dainik Bhaskar, Daily Thanthi, Amar Ujala and Malayala Manorama follow suit.

In the Top five English magazines, India Today tops the charts, whereas Readers Digest, General Knowledge Today, Filmfare and Competition Success Review feature in the top five list.

In the regional magazines category, Saras Salil is the top read magazine. Vanitha, Kumudam, Grihsobha and India Today (Hindi) also feature the top five list.

Stay tuned for the next in the series...