Gireesh Kumar Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director, AGA Publications Ltd (Vaartha)

Vaartha, the Telugu daily from the Sanghi Group (AGA Publications Ltd) has completed 10 years, and is today the second largest on readership (NRS) in the language. With plans to venture into television before the end of the calendar year, and Hindi daily Swatantra, Vaartha also doing well in the Andhra Pradesh market. The daily has grown to a readership of 5,347,000, according to NRS 2005 (R2), and claims a circulation of 691,000 copies.

Gireesh Kumar Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director, AGA Publications Ltd, is a busy man. Besides the publication, he is a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), a member of the Standing Committee on Chemical and Fertilizers, and a member of the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Finance. He is also Co-chairman of the Vigilance and Monitoring Committee, Ministry of Rural Development. Gokul Krishnamurthy of exchange4media spoke to him on Vaartha, the Telugu daily market, and the group’s future plans. Excerpts:

Q. Has staying away from ABC affected your advertising revenues?

Very rarely is it an issue. In our experience, we find that ABC nowadays has no significance. If we have a certification, it is good. But I don’t think it is a drawback or lacuna.

Q. Why not an English daily?

That is not immediately a priority. To be in the English market you need deep pockets.

Q. It’s been 10 years now since Vaartha was launched. Have you met the targets you had set for yourself?

The journey has been very good so far – very healthy and very encouraging. We have achieved more than what is expected from a newspaper in such a short span of time. We have taken up public issues over this period, and on the whole there is good acceptability and support. The numbers are good, but it is up to us to increase the numbers. The whole team is working on this rigorously and we will see the results soon.

Our target was much bigger. There were reasons for not reaching the targets we had set for ourselves. The growth, honestly, was not on a path we imagined. Someone tries to grow; someone tries to pull you down.

But when we look at the entire picture today: we started with nine editions, and have built it to 19 today. We have an extensive spread of bureaus everywhere. We have also become totally debt free. We are today in a very comfortable position, and are also poised to grow from where we are.

Q. You have stayed away from ABC for sometime now…

ABC, in my opinion, is not a very fair organisation. There is an issue of transparency. New entrants don’t find a place in ABC. I think the country needs another organisation parallel to ABC. That’s when the publications and the advertisers can get the benefit of these studies. When we have a counter check through NRS, IRS, and they say you have a readership of 50 lakh, we know that we can’t have that readership without circulation. Today, if ABC says no, you are wrong, you can’t challenge them. Even in future, if I go for an ABC certificate, I won’t be as happy as I am with the readership studies.

Q. The competition has intensified in the Telugu daily space. How has the market grown?

It is good that competition is active. It makes us tighten our own belts also. The Telugu readership is expanding at the rate of 15-20 per cent each year. Vaartha has also grown. We all share within the available expanded readership. By and large, the competition is healthy. There are certain areas where certain players adopt unethical practices. We need to just ignore them and go ahead.

Q. How is the advertising growing? And English publications have a substantial share of this pie…

The readership for English dailies in AP is far lesser than that of Telugu dailies. In Telugu, the total readership is at around 1.5 crore. And both are growing at the same pace too.

In advertising, that’s a major problem with planners. They feel English readership gives more mileage. But that is not a fact. The upcoming markets are all in the countryside. The issue is: there are people who own three cars, and there are people who can afford three cars but don’t own even one. There is an issue there. The Telugu reader is more financially robust than the average English reader.

Q. Swatantra Vaartha, launched six years ago, has also done well. Does a bouquet of offerings help in the AP market?

Swatantra Vaartha is today the No. 1 in the state among Hindi publications, with a readership of over 100,000. Having a bouquet of offerings always helps. One supplements the other. There are infrastructure advantages. There are certain disadvantages also. If there is a standalone offering, it also offers opportunity for more focus. But if you retain your focus, then you can make use of the synergies. So, there is no major constraint. A bunch of roses is arguably more attractive than a single rose.

Q. The market leader is a strong player in the print and electronic media. Why not Vaartha?

We have on our agenda a news channel. It was always there on the cards, but we wanted to get set properly in the print media before expanding. We are in the process of gathering our software right now, and a core team is in place. The rest of the team will be augmented along the way and the channel should be launched in six to eight months.

Q. You are also an MP representing a political party in the Rajya Sabha. Is Vaartha immune to political orientations?

The publication is totally independent. My priority as a publisher is the publication first. I started Vaartha before I joined the Congress. I think it depends on whether you come into media after being in politics or the other way round. Neither does my politics depend on the publication.

Q. Your Internet edition claims to be the largest read Telugu daily on the net. Where do the visitors come from? And how has the advertisers’ response been?

We enjoy close to 80 million hits a month. I think we have the maximum advertisers of any of the publications in Telugu. The web offering is close to six or seven years old now, and we get readers from over 100 countries. There are Telugu readers across the world who want news from here. We want to be the ones to provide that to them. We provide news even up to the Mandal level.

Q. What are the future plans for Vaartha daily and the group?

Andhra Pradesh is one of the best markets for media in the country. Our readership is much more than an average count in the country.

In our nascent stage, we were focused more on the rural segment, rural development, the farmer community and related issues. We did not stress much on the urban market. We will continue to do that, but will simultaneously increase our focus on urban centres. We will also add more colour printing to all our 19 editions. We are set to grow. Print media as such is able to give a lot of material and the readers are asking for more. We also plan to take Swatantra Vaartha to other non-Hindi regions of the country, including Bangalore and Kolkata in the coming year.

Q. On regulatory issues and FDI…

I think we need not ape the west – neither the cultures nor the business models, nor the media. India should be able to develop its own media policy. Given the vibrant democracy we are, we can make other countries follow our model. There is so much of culture, heritage, literature, and we need to see how we can export them properly. I don’t think FDI is required. We have the monies. In fact, Indian companies should be encouraged to emerge as multinationals. Instead of looking at the US and Europe for a shop-out, we should look at publications there that we can grab. It is a reality. If I get the right buy at the right price in the right atmosphere, I will definitely venture into it.