IMC 2009: Paving the road ahead for language publications

While there has been a lot of focus on English media and the effects of the downturn, not enough attention has been to language publications. The session on ‘Language publishing – How it withstood the slowdown’ at the Indian Magazine Congress 2009 sought to highlight pertinent issues such as survival of regional magazines, importance of relevant content, strategies, etc.

The two-day IMC 2009 is being held in the Capital on November 5-6. Worldwide Media is the presenting sponsor, while Chitralekha and Cannon are the associate sponsors. exchange4media Group (exchange4media.com, impact and Pitch) is the media partner.

The session was moderated by Delhi Press’ Anant Nath, while the panellists included Amit Tiwari, Country Manager Media, Philips India; Mitrajit Bhattacharya, President & Publisher, Chitralekha; and Pritti Kumar, CEO and Editor, G2 Magazine.

Commencing the discussions, Anant Nath spoke about Delhi Press’ experience and said, “Language publishing in India offers a huge opportunity. What we need is to change our strategy. Last year, our experience has been encouraging. We had made some editorial changes. We stepped up our marketing strategy for our magazines and revamped some of them.”

Amit Tiwari, too, sounded positive about the scope for language publications. He said, “I see regional magazines as a culture. 20 per cent of India’s population kept up with their reading habits even during the time of slowdown, which is a good sign. However, relevance of the content should always be kept in mind. We need to focus on knowing that where our customer is and what he wants. We are not only competing with our fellow magazine brands but other mediums like TV, radio, newspapers and mobile as well. We want our magazines to be elite and this ‘elite fashion’ is killing us. However, regional magazines in India have a certain durability.”

According to Mitrajit Bhattacharya, “Regional magazines have endured several recessions like this. We are not dependent on advertisement alone, but also get revenues from our paid version. Our strategy is to cater to international readers as well. We have majority of business coming from outside India. In the metros, it is difficult to get hold on the regional magazine readers. But it is easy in rural and semi-urban places. In order to grow the language press, we need to promote and encourage language at the school level itself.”

His advice to other language players was, “Be original, integrate your product and take leadership – that is the success mantra. We need smarter products with a wider range. The quality of content production should be good. Regional magazines need to work on their brands to attract national advertisers.”

Pritti Kumar felt that the time of recession was not a good time for magazines. Speaking about G2 Magazine, she said, “We are not an old player in the market, hence we were impacted by the recession last year. We had to go through cost cuttings. Now, we have almost come out of the recession. There are many advertisers, who think differently. Last year, there were some new advertisers who advertised with us for the first time. Hence, we need to tap such advertisers too.”