CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION OF INDIAN PRINT MEDIA 1.1 INDIAN PRINT MEDIA With 62,483 newspapers and periodicals in 101 languages, and combined daily circulation of 99 million, India is the second biggest newspaper market in the world despite its poor literacy rates. Print, despite being the biggest incumbent medium, continued to attract the largest share of advertising spends. The India Print story is in stark contrast to the threat being faced by the medium globally. The major reason for the revenue growth has been the consistent hike in Card Rates of major players, in spite of increased competition in the top 8 Metros and stagnant Average Issue Readership (AIR) numbers. While this has been made possible due to the continued dominance of publications in their home markets, rate hikes in some part have also been imposed to offset their entry into new markets. Rate hikes have taken place at both the premium and the popular ends of the product spectrum. Expensive English print became even more expensive with leading brands making forays into new markets or improving relative readership contribution from smaller markets. On the other hand the local retail market continued to strengthen its media investment in regional publications. Here increased colour options helped publications improve their yield from advertisers. 60% of total volume consumption in 2007 was in colour as against 52% the year before. Publications are also actively looking at ways to tap into the local advertising market with “Go Local” drives by way of new Supplements. India today has emerged as the second largest media market in the world, says the World Association of Newspapers (2007), the global association for the industry. Indians buy 99 million copies of newspapers alone every day, making it the second-largest newspaper market in the world after the United States. The Indian Newspaper Society, an organization of the print media in India, says it has over 990 dailies, bi-weeklies,...