“Magazines have adapted to web, mobile & social”

The Vikatan Group is one of the earliest media houses in South India dating back to 1926. The Group publishes 10 different magazines and many books.

According to B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group, print is a strong and steady platform and it will not change for a while from the Indian perspective.

In conversation with exchange4media, Srinivasan speaks about the growth of niche magazines, going digital and the company’s way forward, among other things…

What are some of the trends that you have witnessed in the magazine space in Tamil Nadu over the last couple of years?
Genre-based segmentation of magazines has come to life in Tamil. Just in the past five years or so, fields such as personal finance, automobile, health and organic farming, have all seen the introduction and growth of magazines of special interest. Also, magazines have finally adapted to the growing change agent – web, mobile and social – and have realised that these are parts of media that cannot be ignored. But the surprise element has been the introduction of a low-cost magazine for the youth of the internet age – Timepass. It is now galloping at a pace that even mainline magazines have begun to feel the heat – and have started to take notice – all within three months or so of its introduction. The price point of Rs 5 and the USP of being a 'Facebook' of the print world has helped this phenomenal growth.

Overall, magazine readership has been on the decline as per the IRS. How can magazine publishers stem this slide? What steps is Vikatan taking to boost readership and circulation?
Year-on-year our circulation has been on the growth track and I don’t know how readership can go the other way round. Last year was an election year in Tamil Nadu (TN) and it contributed to the growth in Junior and AnandaVikatan. This year’s extraordinary power situation (almost blackout in 80 per cent of TN) has spurred the growth of magazine sales simply due to lack of alternative entertainment (read TV). Will any of these socio-economic change factors reflect in the IRS? I sincerely hope so! There are other numbers apart from the standard IRS readership. Other than print, we have also grown in the digital space with huge growth in online and apps subscriptions and over 10,000+ app downloads every month since Feb, 2012. Vikatan has over 14 brand pages adding upto 2.5 fans on Facebook, more than 75,000 followers on Twitter, just to name a few. Not a single ‘like’ has been ‘purchased’.

Our content team has allocated resources for every magazine to grow its own Facebook page, resulting in a healthy competition within our own products. Our phone-in product ‘Hello Vikatan’ is just two years old but it receives over 1.5 lakh callers every month, of which over 50 per cent are repeat callers. Vikatan is a ‘listening and learning’ organisation and we believe the best growth can come when we understand our customers better.

Globally, quite a few publications are taking to digital-only editions. Do you see a similar trend emerging in India? How much of an opportunity and threat is the digital medium to print publications?
We firmly believe that Vikatan is a media house whose core business is to deliver content across platforms. Print is a strong and steady platform and that will not change for a while from the Indian perspective.  However, we are already an almost 100 per cent digital publication for our international diaspora. Only our print subscription internationally has been declining, making way for digital subscriptions – something that is phenomenally growing and breaching new records year-on-year.

We went live with all our magazines online from 1997 and with paid subscription since 2005 – probably the first Indian media house to have the guts to do so. So to answer your question, we are already there. Opportunity or threat in this medium entirely depends on the publication’s timing to step into digital.  There is no ‘whether’ any longer. However, I strongly believe print still has a long race to run before publication houses go digital-only.

What is the overall scenario with respect to print publications in the South? What are some of the key challenges faced there? 
When regional TV can answer the needs of the client/agency in respect to a market (say Tamil Nadu), why does advertising on print stop with English newspapers or at worst, with Tamil newspapers? The planners and buyers must look into the responsive world of regional language periodicals. Our readers are emotional, responsive, pay good money to buy and read magazines, respond extremely fast and decisively to calls for action and external stimuli. When advertisers understand the true potential of Tamil magazines, their reach and influence over the affluent, decision-making customer base, they will truly hit the gold mine of reach and response in the regional market. For example, where do most luxury cars get sold in TN? Is it the cosmopolitan Chennai or the reverberant Coimbatore? Does the advertiser think that the consumer in Coimbatore responds better to The Hindu or TOI or to AnandaVikatan there? Affluence and influence has nothing to do with English language. The national debate of regional over English and magazine over newspaper is all the more accentuated in the South.

What can we expect from the Vikatan Group in 2013? What will be your key focus areas?
The key focus areas will include integration of print with digital, increased level of engagement with consumers through web, mobile, social and on-ground activations, and audience metrics delivered to advertisers to offer better venues for relevant, targeted and rich advertising/ promotion.