Rajnikant Vs. Rajnikant

This is a truly inspiring story. Of a man, who has managed to help two Tamil weeklies, both with rich and illustrious histories, defy the ‘summer drop’. And possibly grow. Welcome to the land that worships its screen idols (and subsequently elevates them to positions of power, in some cases). And the presiding deity of the silver screen for the present is Rajnikant, the inimitable South Indian superstar.

It is questionable, if the magic of this Southern screen-lord would have worked wonders for the two weeklies after the release of his last flick ‘Baba’, which failed at the box-office, or before the release of his current super hit, ‘Chandramukhi’. But fact remains that ‘Chandramukhi’ has been running successfully all over since its release on April 14. The picture is also generating media reports on Rajnikant becoming the highest paid actor in the country with an income of over Rs 200 million for this project.

In the Tamil weekly segment, Ananda Vikatan is the recently crowned leader on circulation, with 4,30,534 copies in the July-Dec 2004 period, as against 3,51,970 copies in Jan-June 2004. Kumudam registered a circulation of 4,22,141 copies in the same period (Source: ABC). Kumudam is the leader on readership with IRS R1 2005 figures putting its count at 27.11 lakh readers against Vikatan’s 20.20 lakh readers. But the focus has shifted, at least for now, from the readership vs. circulation battle, to the war fought on the covers and first few pages of both publications — which invited readers to spend time with their favourite matinee idol, off screen.

Though both the weeklies are carrying ‘special’, ‘exclusive’, cover stories in a series format, on the actor, Ananda Vikatan had a head start. In its issue dated May 29, 2005, the publication launched what it termed as its ‘No. 1 celebration with the Super Star’s exclusive Series’. It also said that the series is expected to share the unrevealed thoughts and views of the Super Star about the society, values and spirituality. The publication left no stone (or wall, maybe) unturned in publicising the special series — from Sun TV to mega sized posters. The issue was a runaway success, if market sources are to be believed. And the posters were said to be as much in demand as copies of the publication itself. Reliable sources confirm that the publication had not increased the print order significantly for the first issue, thereby creating a demand.

For its subsequent issue dated June 05, 2005, the publication put its printing presses to work overtime. While B. Srinivasan, Joint Managing Director, Ananda Vikatan, is unwilling to divulge numbers, he claims, “Both the issues have done extremely well. On the second issue, we had close to a 10 per cent hike in the print orders. And the copies have almost sold off.” (May 31, 2005).

A week later, Kumudam had on its cover the superstar with the ‘Exclusive’ tag, revealing the secret behind the coining of what is probably the most popular chant (from film dialogues at least) in the state today, which goes ‘laka-laka-laka-laka…’. And the curiosity to learn what this means, has driven Kumudam’s sales too, this week, if market sources are to be relied on!

While Ananda Vikatan has taken off on the superstar’s spiritual journey to the Himalayas, reporting on the trip as a series from the point of view of a person accompanying the actor, Kumudam’s first week (of series) has him in conversation with the Chairman of the Group, as reported by two of the publication’s correspondents. And Kumudam too, has informed readers through its first edition of the series, that in the next week’s edition, it will have the superstar revealing his spiritual side. Meanwhile, Ananda Vikatan’s second issue has Rajnikant answering few questions on his recent hit too, besides the spiritual exchanges. So is there confusion in the minds of the reader about which publication is offering what? Not really, say many (38 readers of both weeklies), because to them, these are stories on Rajnikant, spiritual or otherwise. And more importantly, it’s worth a read!

The Kumudam team says it is excited with the trend. “I think this is an exciting period of growth. The one who’s going to benefit both is the reader. It is about a movie being a great hit and his fans are clamoring for more news on him,” says Dr. Jawahar Palaniappan, Chairman, Kumudam. Indicating that there was no dramatic increase in numbers, he adds, “It has been a sell out issue. Normally in the holiday period, it is a bit sluggish for magazines, and this has been a turnaround phase.”

To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated June 6-12, 2005