In its acceptance of the advertising methods of Western
nations, the Indian press is possibly most like that of those countries except
in one vital feature: one of the largest advertisers, if not the largest, is
the central government. Its expenditures on all advertising, including publicity
other than paid newspaper and magazine advertising, is in the neighborhood of $
3,000,000 or more than £8,900,000. The annual advertising expenditure in India ,
all sources, is estimated to be about $ 26,000,000.
In recent years, the sum spent by the government on display
advertising in newspapers has gone to the smaller publications, in an attempt
to enable them to survive against the big city dailies, a policy which
apparently is a factor in their rising circulations. Approximately $ 1,300,000
of the $ 3,000,000 spent by the government is in newspaper and classified space
alone.
Whatever its source, advertising in India is service
oriented; studies made of newspaper advertising show that there is a large
possibility of expansion in the area of consumer goods, if other conditions
make this possible, such as increased production, greater purchasing power than
at present, and more paper on which to print. Small businessmen and small
industries account for most of the advertisers but not of the space. The print
media lead in India
in both sales and volume for the obvious reason that they have little
competition, since that comes only from car or tram cards, films, and other
minor forms. Radio is a government operated enterprise, and television, thus
far used only experimentally or in limited educational ways, will also be
government owned and operated and not offer advertisers time.
The Indian advertising business received a scare last year
when the central government announced the imposition of an income tax
regulation disallowing tax deductions on advertising expenditures exceeding $
10,000. This regulation was rescinded when it was pointed out that its
enforcement would wipe out many publications as well as advertising agencies,
of which latter India
has about 150.
Newsprint shortages obviously stultify circulation growth
that might develop under such favorable conditions as slowly increasing
literacy, improved publications, and news of the type that is important to
newspapers if harmful to the nation: the conflicts with China and Pakistan in
recent years, and the deaths of two prime ministers during the same period. Nevertheless the story is one of increases despite
obstacles. The Registrar of Newspapers reported that the circulation of both
newspapers and periodicals had grown, in 1959 to 1963, by 39% or from
16,901,000 to 23,496,000. But this is a conservative figure, because the
earlier one is for claimed circulation and the later for verified.
Individual circulations, however, are not high,
comparatively. During 1963, the latest complete year reported at this writing,
nine out of 466 dailies, tri-weeklies, and bi-weeklies had 100,000 or higher.
Eleven of the 5,422 publications listed as periodicals reached or exceeded that
100,000 mark. A total of twenty out of 5,888 publications, therefore, have
100,000 or more. The nine newspapers combined had 1,110,000 circulation; the
eleven periodicals had 1,628,000.
Some figures are available for individual publications. The
largest newspaper was the Bengali daily, Ananda Bazar Patrika of Calcutta, with
161,809. The biggest chain circulation was 310,000, attained by the Indian
Express 55 papers published in six cities. The largest weekly was Kumudam, a
Tamil publication issued in Madras
and selling 305,146 copies. The regular periodical that stood first was Kalyan. a Hindi monthly, with 133,756. Filmfare, a Bombay fortnightly, and the Indian edition of
The Reader’s Digest. in English, followed.
The trend in circulation, like that in advertising revenue
and volume, is up, but the rise is slow, taking place for the large
publications mainly in the industrial centers and extraordinarily so for the
small papers in small communities, with the large papers often as not losing
ground in the outlying areas. But India
