The newspaper industry believes that the drop in circulation numbers reflected in the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) data for the January-June 2022 period is “artificial” and not “perpetual” as many newspapers either did not participate in the process or excluded most of their editions.
Recently, the ABC conducted an audit of the January-June 2022 period. After a gap of 2 years, the audit revealed a drop of 20-30% of circulation figures.
Hormuzd Masani Secretary General of Audit Bureau of Circulations said that it was unfair to compare these two periods to conclude that there has been a decline in the number of publications. “This decline is artificial. Masani stated that there are many time zones and different periods.
He shared with us that many publications had not submitted their circulation figures. This was the root cause of the decline. “We offered all publications a voluntary submission period from January- June 22. Many of them submitted, while others didn’t. There is an artificial decline as a result. Because they had certified the figures after two years, this was the first time ABC offered publishers opt-in or opt-out options.
“It’s only valid for one period, it’s not perpetuity. For the next period, the majority of them and all should file for July-December 22, and that would be the correct figures to view the long-term trend. You can’t say that print publications have decreased in number. Some of the topline publications did not submit their figures at all.”
The ABC data, accessed by exchange4media, shows that some national Hindi and English newspapers didn’t include all of their editions. HT Media listed only three editions of the Hindustan Times, Lucknow and Patna editions. The Hindu didn’t list any edition for the audit. Lokmat also did not list any editions for the audit. Some publishers, such as Punjab Kesari and Malayala Manorama, did not list all editions.
Dhruba Mukhorjee, CEO at ABP, stated that the lockdowns caused newspaper circulation to be affected by supply issues. “Though the supply side issues got sorted out over a period of time, extended lockdowns saw sales at outdoor stalls and institutions getting affected.
Also, there was an underlying fear amongst a small section of the society that Covid virus may get transmitted through physical newspapers, making them stay away from it.”
“All of this affected newspaper circulation by 30-50% in the initial months. This has stabilized to around 10-20% after a long recovery cycle. A part of it (maybe 10-15%) will never come back as media consumption habits have changed for a few over these two years, but the rest will,” Mukherjee added.
Mukherjee said that every newspaper is currently working on content and pricing strategies in order to increase their circulation back to pre-Covid levels. Given India’s vast population and increasing literacy levels, the opportunity is large, and backed by the unputdownable trust factor that print media still enjoys over all other forms of media, there is optimism on the trajectory, he shared.
“We got our regional daily Anandabazar Patrika (all editions) audited in the Jan-Jun 2022 period. We intend to get both our regional and English newspapers audited in the Jul-Dec period,” informed Mukherjee.
Amit Chopra (Joint Managing Director, Punjab Kesari) also shared that all editions were listed for the audit. “However, the current audit figures show a decline in circulation numbers. After Covid there was a fear among people and hence they stopped buying newspapers for a while and the circulation for every publisher came down to 40-50%.”
“Subsequently, there has been a recovery of up to 85% in many places. The recovery has stopped at 15%. The trend is similar if you look at the average. A lot of people have recently moved to digital and we don’t yet know if they will come back. All newspapers are really trying hard to bring them back by introducing new schemes and more, but will see the results in five- six months.”
Chopra also said that the ABC data is important as there have been no certified numbers for the past two year. “Advertisers know what happened during Covid and this data gives a clear picture.”
Varghese Chady, Vice-President, Marketing and Advertising, Malayala Manorama said that printing publishing faced difficult times in 2020-2021. For audit purposes, the publication listed all editions.
Chandy said that even though the market situation has improved, newsprint availability is still a problem. “With this in mind, and the fact that the base year for the comparison has been taken as Jul-Dec 2019, it is quite natural to see a drop.”
He said that Kerala publications had the lowest circulation drop across India. It saw a drop of 14%. “We were fortunate to have the support of the government which ensured that our distribution network remained intact and had also assured the public that newspapers were least likely carriers of the virus. Along with advertising, we are now seeing a revival in our circulation as well and are moving towards our pre-Covid numbers.”
Chandy states that circulation numbers are essential to determine the strength and viability of publications. Without the IRS, ABC is an even more valuable currency for advertisers. “Internally, we are striving hard to reach the 2019 circulation numbers and should be able to reach our target in the next couple of months.”
Because of the impact the pandemic had on circulation numbers, publishers decided to exclude various editions from audit.
“We excluded some editions of ABC reporting for Jan-June 2022 due to low numbers,” stated a senior executive at a national Hindi newspaper.
The latest audit was completed in 2019 for the period of July-December.