May
5
“Stemming from advances in printing technology, rising literacy rates and the fact that the internet is still out of reach for a wide majority of Indians, daily newspapers – and there are about 60,000 in India – and their glossy counterparts are touting unrivalled readership statistics. “The current status of the print media industry in India is good. The industry has been growing continuously,” said M Shakeel Ahmed, the general manager and former editor of the Press Trust of India news agency. “More and more newspapers are coming out at all levels. “Newspapers in India are still very cheap, mostly costing between one rupee [seven fils] and three rupees, less than the price of a cup of tea or coffee [at a local street side stall]. TV news has only been adding to the appetite to subscribe to a newspaper and internet penetration in the country is still very low.” As publications in more developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom grapple to restructure their organisations to reach a growing online audience and satisfy advertisers, Indian media and its bloating girth of middle-class urbanites are feeding a new found hunger for the printed word.
The average Indian spends about 44 minutes a day reading the newspaper, according to India’s National Readership Survey. Compare that with the 27 minutes a day the average American spends on newspapers, according to a 2008 survey conducted by the Readership Institute, a media research centre based out of Northwestern University in the United States. In October, the Christian Science Monitor became the first national US newspaper to announce it would switch from its daily print run to an online presence. The paper – established a century ago – had seen its circulation drop from 170,000 in its heyday to around 52,000 recently.
The Times of India, which is India’s largest English-language newspaper, boasts the world’s second-highest circulation of any daily publication in English. In 2005, the US-based Audit Bureau of Circulation rated TOI the most circulated English paper in the world at 2.4 million copies sold daily, more than double that of the New York Times.” Developing a thirst for news - The National Newspaper
The average Indian spends about 44 minutes a day reading the newspaper, according to India’s National Readership Survey. Compare that with the 27 minutes a day the average American spends on newspapers, according to a 2008 survey conducted by the Readership Institute, a media research centre based out of Northwestern University in the United States. In October, the Christian Science Monitor became the first national US newspaper to announce it would switch from its daily print run to an online presence. The paper – established a century ago – had seen its circulation drop from 170,000 in its heyday to around 52,000 recently.
The Times of India, which is India’s largest English-language newspaper, boasts the world’s second-highest circulation of any daily publication in English. In 2005, the US-based Audit Bureau of Circulation rated TOI the most circulated English paper in the world at 2.4 million copies sold daily, more than double that of the New York Times.” Developing a thirst for news - The National Newspaper
