Maheshwer Peri, President & Publisher, The Outlook group

Long live India Today, Long live Outlook! When we launched the magazine, we did not target India Today. If India Today wants to follow us, then it’s their problem. When we launched Outlook, we launched it as a weekly news magazine, they were a fortnightly at that time. When we launched Outlook Money, we launched it as a personal finance magazine, I did not ask them to start a personal finance column in Business Today or India Today. I started Outlook Traveller as a travel magazine, if they changed India Today Plus to Travel Plus, it’s not my problem. I have been identifying issues and going ahead with that. If they want to follow us, if they want to change the way they look at journalism, then God bless them. I think there is space for the two of us and maybe more.

A chartered accountant by profession, Maheshwer Peri began his career as an investment banker with the largest investment bank in India. As a merchant banker, he has worked on many projects in varying industries, including the ones on media. At 36 years, Peri might be one of the youngest publishers in India running a big enterprise like the Outlook group. Ever since he took over in 1998, the group has successfully launched a magazine on travel, personal finance, a vernacular newsmagazine, a city centric magazine and the books division.

Now, the group under his leadership is all set to launch a business magazine, an international women’s magazine and an international news magazine. The Outlook group today publishes the second largest English newsmagazine in India, the largest travel magazine, the largest personal finance magazine and the largest travel book-publishing house in India.

In conversation with exchange4media’s Asit Ranjan Mishra, Peri

Q. But you have entertainment magazines also….

No, but there is an audience which loves entertainment. If Stardust does a cover on any of the stars, it won’t be talked about. But if Outlook or India Today puts one of these stars on the cover, it means that he has arrived. In one recent issue, we did something on Bollywood. We called it Follywood Awards. These days, everybody and anybody is going on stage and collecting trophies. We said let’s bat them on their butts. So, we came out with the Follywood Awards. We talked about the worst actor, worst actress, worst movie, worst direction, etc. They need to understand that if there are people praising them, there are also people criticising them. And it is very important for them because it grounds them firmly. It is important at times to hit them where it hurts. We are not here to keep clapping at everything that happens. We are here to criticise what’s supposed to happen but does not happen

The audience who will be reading Newsweek or Time or any other such magazine would want international perspective. You can’t dilute that. I have seen issues of Time where they had put Sania Mirza on the cover and the news articles carried on newspapers saying ‘Sania Mirza on the cover of Time.’ But it’s only in the Indian edition! It’s a joke, it’s a big joke out there! They printed the copies in Singapore and they changed the cover. Just go for the Asian edition, she won’t be there on the cover. And that’s a ridiculous thing that has been happening. I am saying that if people are reading Time or Newsweek in India, they are reading it for what exactly the magazine is abroad. You want to dilute that by adding 10 pages of what Lalu is doing or Mayawati is doing, you will be thrown out, because that’s not the audience. That audience will buy Outlook, that audience will buy India Today.

Why not? Information is power. If based on information, you are taking decisions which are worth lakhs and crores, based on information you are sitting in an interview, then you must be ready to pay for it. All these are investments. If you are not going to invest in the right information source, then you are going to falter at each step, which the larger audience have to realise. If credible information takes you places, then you better pay for that. In India, people pay Rs 150 for a movie ticket, but when it comes to a magazine the same people may not invest. But they must understand the power of information in their lives.

No, whatever is coming to India, if you can’t stop it, make it legal.

I am talking from the perspective of what an Outlook reader is all about. It does not mean that I don’t commit something similar to that. I just want to say that if I am going to believe that an Outlook reader has arrived, then he is looking for something else, not an Aspire.

Yes, but I actually don’t see a problem because the law can’t prevent us from doing so. The law is clear, people have been doing it so and we are going to do it.

Huge. Before 1990, we were a closed economy, a very well-protected economy. No one could come into the country, no one could go out of the country. Today, the world is a global village. Look at the kind of people who go out of India and the kind of people coming to India from abroad to work here and give jobs here. Look at the growth of the BPO sector. Increasingly, borders are becoming thinner. One who wants to grow should have a great international perspective, and all Indian magazines fail in this respect to a large extent.

I don’t know who has lobbied for it, the present facsimile edition policy is not wise at all because why should a reader in India pay Rs 80 to buy a Newsweek or Time magazine when it could be provided at a price of Rs 25 or Rs 30? The current law only prevents these kind of things from happening.

Yes. But the difference between what they are doing and what we are doing is that they are a distributor and an agent, but we are not merely a distributor or agent. I can change the price of Newsweek tomorrow morning if I want to, they can’t do that till Time magazine agrees. I have the power to change the rates, I have the power to sell the ads at whatever price I want. The relationship is much, much bigger. And if the government permits, I will start printing Newsweek here. If the government will open up further, I will license Newsweek in India.

Absolutely, I don’t have a problem.

That is the issue the government has to tackle. I am only talking about the business perspective. If there is a larger interest, then so be it. There was a huge debate when Murdoch tried to enter the US though Fox and the arguments were well-placed from both the sides. So, ultimately the government has to decide. All I am saying is that the current facsimile edition policy is unfair to a certain extent. Because adding Indian ads is not going to change anything in the magazine. You can always say that one can’t change the content that is there in the international magazine. But to say that you can’t change the content and you can’t change the ads, too, means someone has played dirty here.

I don’t think so. We are competing in the market, we are friends otherwise. When we do something, we want to be serious. That does not mean that we want to defeat someone.

He is aggressive, he has a passion for his country and whatever he does. He is young, brash, vibrant – that’s the kind of reader we have. People who speak out when they see something wrong happening, they just don’t sit back. And that’s what we want them to be. We will always welcome a reader who speaks his out mind. And that’s why I keep telling people, the best way to get your letter published in the magazine is simply write a letter saying ‘Mr Editor, you are good for nothing’ and your letter will be published, because that’s what we like. We like people who criticise us. We don’t like people who are neither here nor there.

That’s why we are launching a business magazine, a women’s magazine, and we are in the process of launching 2-3 more magazines. The audience is expecting us to deliver content which we are not able to deliver through Outlook, so we are coming out with those magazines so that we can deliver that kind of content.

No, a person who makes decisions on the basis of Spice is not an Aspire reader, and a person who buys India Today for Aspire is not a Spice reader. It’s a very clear contradiction.

People who stay in the city and looking for options of eating out, drinking out or going out, people who come from far away cities to Delhi and try to understand what the city is all about and what they can do in their spare time. So, anybody who is a city dweller or anyone who is coming into the city and has time to spare time to explore the city is our target audience.

Look at the way India has developed in the last 10 years. The stock market has multiplied 10 times. FDI and FII investments have increased multiple times. But the business magazines are the same and their content is just the same. It’s like magazines don’t have an idea what the readers want. And that’s where we see the opportunity. We want to do serious business journalism which is not personality led, but company led. It is much more serious, much more factual, much more analytical. We are not going to cover stories on 100 best companies to work for. We will do stories much more on industries, on sectors, on companies, on the economy, and on financials. It will be interesting. It will be hardcore research. We won’t be having a person next to his car on the cover of our magazine, never.

It’s an aspirational magazine. At each level we all are decision makers. I may say I am the decision maker of the company because I am the CEO, though I have a board to report to, I have a promoter to report to. At your level you are the decision maker as you decide what goes into an article when you interview a person. So, at each level we are the decision makers and it is very aspirational. We are saying, if you read this magazine, you will remain better informed, you will understand management strategy and financials much better.

Long live India Today, Long live Outlook! For me, I don’t have an issue about those things. When we launched the magazine, we did not target India Today. If India Today wants to follow us, then it’s their problem. When we launched Outlook, we launched it as a weekly news magazine, they were a fortnightly at that time. When we launched Outlook Money, we launched it as a personal finance magazine, I did not ask them to start a personal finance column in Business Today or India Today. If they follow us, what should I do? I started Outlook Traveller as a travel magazine, if they changed India Today Plus to Travel Plus, it’s not my problem. I have been identifying issues and going ahead with that. If they want to follow us, if they want to change their style, if they want to change the way they look at journalism, then God bless them. I think there is space for he two of us and maybe more. I think the magazine industry is less representative in the country when you compare it with the newspaper industry and television. There is much more scope for many more people to come. We have a larger strategy, and that is to be a big magazine group, and any genre which is big enough and we have to be present in, we will be present. If it has not happened yesterday, it will happen today. If it is not happening today, it will happen tomorrow.

I think if you are going to increase the price there will be a strategy in place. That may include something similar to that or may include something different from that or there may be nothing along with that. But there will be a strategy in place.

That argument can hold true for a newspaper, for television, for everything. There is no end to it. But the advantage that you have for a magazine is the tactile feel, the comfort. You can read it when you want to, the way you want to and the kind of analysis magazines provide. And there would always be space for magazines, if you look at the global scene, the niche magazines are growing at a very fast rate.

All our magazines are market leaders. Outlook Traveller is the largest selling travel magazine in the country. Money is the largest selling personal finance magazine in the country. City Limits is the largest city centric magazine in the country.

Let’s not name names now. But all publishers who have taken the right of distribution of foreign news magazines are doing it, so we are going to do it too.

See, it’s a lobby. If you are sure of your product, then there is no problem. I keep saying if Newsweek comes to India and launches as Newsweek India or Time India, as they call it, then people who are buying Time will stop buying Time any which way, people who are buying Newsweek will stop buying Newsweek any which way, because it dilutes the content. Why do you buy a local newspaper and not a national newspaper? Because you want to have the local news, and you want to have the national news too.

No, I think it’s a perspective. You have to understand the way different countries are moving. Outlook does one sex survey in a year. If anyone would come to me and say sex is not important to be on the cover, then I would laugh. Entertainment is a big part of our life. We go through so many turbulence in our professional lives, we need to have some lighter issues too. But the way you put them across is very, very important. Outlook has not done a film based cover in the last one year if I can recall correctly. We don’t want to be frivolous in our approach. But, at the same time it is such an important aspect that you can’t ignore it. What happens is people do notice these covers more than any other cover. So, if you analyse any of the news magazines over the one year you will come to something which says – Ok this is the news magazine which takes up more serious issues, this magazine may be more featurish and some other magazines are not newsy at all. We are a very serious magazine, but at times we want to lighten the mood because we can’t keep hammering again and again.

I don’t know whether I would launch an Aspire that would go with Outlook, let’s put it that way. I think Spice and Aspire clash with each other completely. Spice is an aspirational magazine on most exotic locations or most exotic places to buy a watch, etc. But Aspire is about people who are looking for their first job or higher education. So there is a huge contrast between the two.

Students are not decision makers. They are learning the tricks of the trade. I don’t know whether they are actually targeted because they don’t have buying power, consuming power in any which way. If students read it, it is more aspirational than anything to do with what the advertisers want. If somebody comes to the conclusion that so many students are reading a BusinessWorld or a Business Today, it may happen that advertisers will run away from the magazines. They are not targeting them. Purchasing power in them is going to come in the future. It’s not for students. If students read it, so be it. It’s meant for people who make decisions for their companies, for their organisations.

We will do that. Whether it is today, tomorrow or day after or one year from now, price will keep increasing.

No, not a loophole. I think they have made it difficult for a publisher to do such a thing. But if I am not bothered about the cost complications, I can do it, which is what I am doing.

Outlook has a more vibrant, more robust, more aggressive and young kind of personality. It calls a spade a spade, it does not mince words. We call a criminal a criminal. We don’t try to be safe.