Organised by the Association of Indian Magazines, the Indian Magazine Congress (IMC) has become an annual fixture on the events calendar of the country’s magazine and publication industry. The theme for the Congress this year is 'Magazine Publishers Building New Revenue Streams', and will be held on May 3, at Taj Santacruz, Mumbai.

Anant Nath, President of AIM and Executive Publisher of Delhi Press, spoke to exchange4media, about the relevance of diversifying magazine revenue streams as content becomes increasingly medium agnostic, the glossy feel and flip of paper having evolved to navigating words and pictures on screens.  

“In this entire shift from print to digital where most magazines, along with print at large, have created strong digital editions and acquired large readership, we have seen that the universal experience has been that just creating large audiences online has not necessarily been a very sustainable model because monetization of these digital audiences has been far lesser than what the print readership would have been,” pointed out Nath.

This is why he says the imperative on publishers has been to discover new revenue streams beyond traditional print subscriptions and print advertisers, especially given that a magazine creates content that is far deeper, richer, more thought through and credible in a fast-paced increasingly digitized world.

Old School Advantage

That brings us to perhaps the biggest advantage that magazines, and indeed other storied print publications, have.

“There are always questions on what is the source and authenticity of the content. Magazines have an inherent advantage that the content that they're producing is far deeper, and richer, and it's got great value. And while the magazine audiences are smaller than larger newspapers and of course digital, they're very deeply engaged. Audiences have a far greater sense of trust and belief and connection with the magazine editorial team’s content,” says Nath.

It is this inherent trust that magazines enjoy among their readers, especially regular subscribers, that gives it an edge over its digital competition, according to Nath. And that brings us to how magazines can use this trust to bulwark their presence in a media environment, coming increasingly under the sway of digital players.

Crossing Streams

And speaking of digitization, Nath says the conference will delve deep into how traditional print publications, especially speciality content like magazines (be they around politics, auto, lifestyle, or other more esoteric interests), can figure out how to monetize the quality, deeply researched, and gorgeously produced content they offer.

“One is, of course, continuing the subscription model, but in the digital world that requires a lot of moving parts to it. The magazines need to invest in tech and figure out how they’re going to take it out in new formats, the way they engage their audiences, and the way they market themselves. So a big part of the conference is that on subscription, both for digital content and even for the traditional print content, and what are the new ways to sell subscriptions and what are better ways to deliver those subscriptions?”

As a fraternity, Nath says magazine publishers have been in talks with various e-commerce players like Zomato, and some other specialist B2B and B2C delivery services, to figure out how to leverage the burgeoning e-commerce market to offer subscriptions to content-rich magazines. Indeed, given its increasing popularity, magazines are also in touch with ONDC for a similar delivery experience, with the government-backed platform participating in the conference.

Conference Content

Nath points out that Indian magazines have a very rich history of fiction content, and beyond fiction, we have non-fiction, lifestyle, politics and other content. “A lot of effort has gone into creating that content. Right now, it’s only available in text in both print and digital. Some of us are doing some social media videos, but that doesn't lead to monetization. But what we are seeing is that on the streaming platforms, there is a need for credible content,” he said, ahead of the Indian Magazine Congress.

“The opportunity we see is using this magazine content for creating programming for streaming services, whether it's audio or video, so, therefore, we have a session with some of the content heads of streaming platforms on how we can leverage our content,” adds Nath.

Globally, especially in the West, there is already a strong tradition of generating movies, shows, and other audiovisual programming based on articles in magazines ranging from Vanity Fair to the New Yorker to The Atlantic. Nath says given that Indian magazines have a rich history in creating content, be it in English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, or Bengali, there are plenty of opportunities to use that content for streaming platforms in various Indian languages.

“We have a lot of Indian speakers at the conference, of course, but there are going to be some international speakers who will be speaking on various topics, from content and brand curation to subscription services. Globally, other countries and companies have much stronger subscription models. One of the sessions features the publishers of National Geographic in Spain, who produce the Spanish language edition of the magazine, and then repackage that and other content and present it in different mediums.”

So that naturally brings us to the question.

What is a magazine anyway?

“In a magazine, the expectations of the reader are very tightly defined. I think the important thing to emphasize is that A magazine is not for everybody. A magazine is only for A certain kind of reader, whether it's a political, auto, lifestyle, women or children, it’s got a certain kind of reader. And the need at the consumers’ end is to find a content space that they can connect and identify with,” says Nath, adding that because there's so much content out there that clutters up your mind space (not to mention sights and sounds), people are looking for curation to find something meaningful for them.

“That's what a magazine brand is - it's not important whether the magazine is physical or not. I think it's important that the magazine has a certain approach to creating content. So, what we want to emphasize here is that physical manifestation is not the way to define a magazine. A magazine is defined by the way content is produced, the way that content is tailor-made for a certain kind of audience and the way you engage that audience. That's what defines a magazine as an idea. While a physical copy ends up being the most obvious way of delivering it, we have now transcended into multiple new formats,” concludes Nath.