The print industry plunged into a storm when Covid-19 hit the world in 2020, but the dust, it seems, is finally settling now and the sector is headed towards a robust bounce back. According to EY’s 2023 M&E Report, the sector grew 10 per cent in 2022 to reach 85 per cent of the pre-pandemic levels already, and is expected to cross the Rs 260-billion revenue mark this year. Giving credence to the report are the financial results of several publications that clearly hint at a strong comeback by the sector.

Dainik Bhaskar and HT Media announced their quarterly results for 2023-24 recently. While the former posted a profit, the latter managed to narrow down its losses by a significant margin.

In the quarterly result media release, Sudhir Agarwal, Managing Director, DB Corp said, “As global economies are making a slow recovery from their inflationary pressures, the Indian economy, especially the non-metro markets, continue to see rapid growth. The print sector has been on the uptrend for the past few months and this is likely to continue.” Total revenue for Dainik Bhaskar grew by around 15 per cent to Rs 573.6 crore.

For HT Media, the consolidated net loss narrowed down to Rs 18.98 crore for the quarter ending June 2023. The company had posted a net loss of Rs 41.80 crore in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal.

Talking about the numbers, Shobhana Bhartia, Chairperson and Editorial Director HT Media and Hindustan Media Ventures, in an investor meeting, had said, “Rising media spends by companies, growing consumer demand, more government spending, and relative easing in inflationary pressure, all augur well in the near-term for print, radio and digital sectors of the M&E industry. We are focused on working towards achieving profitable growth in our core businesses while expanding into new areas such as OTT.”

Even for BCCL, the print media revenue was up by 38.48 per cent to Rs 3611.69 crore as compared to Rs 2608.01 crore in the previous fiscal for the year ended March 31, 2022. Jagran Prakashan’s Mid-Day too registered growth in revenues, catching up fast with its numbers in the pre-pandemic times and recorded operating profit from significant operating loss for year ended FY23.

One of the major factors that have contributed to this comeback, say industry experts, is the loyal set of readers that these publications have.

“When it comes to physical newspapers, the brands may have fewer readers but they earn a lot. The reason being that newspapers have a loyal set of readers and the advertisers are willing to pay for them,” explains an industry source.

Print ad revenues back in the game

With the linear TV facing stiff competition from OTT players for viewer’s attention, print has been a good option for advertisers, say industry experts. According to the EY report, the share of advertising to the total income of the print segment stood at 67 per cent, up from 63 per cent in 2020.

Dainik Bhaskar’s advertising revenue grew by a strong 17.2 per cent to Rs 394.6 crore in Q1 2024 as against Rs 336.8 crore in the same quarter of last fiscal. For HT Media, the ad revenue grew on a Y-o-Y basis, as categories such as education, retail and real estate grew while FMCG and auto remained subdued. Mid-Day clocked in advertising revenues at Rs 53.09 crore, up by 53.8 per cent from Rs 34.5 crores, in the year ended March 31, 2023.

Circulation revenue still lower

While the ad revenue curve of print publications has been moving northwards fast, the circulation revenue of the industry has been recovering slowly. The EY Report stated, many publishers opted for an increase in cover prices because circulation copies were still 23 per cent lower than their pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

The circulation revenue of Dainik Bhaskar grew by around 4 per cent to Rs 119.9 crore for the quarter ending June 2023 as against Rs 115.6 crore in Q1 2023.The circulation revenue for HT Media saw growth of 4 per cent on y-o-y, backed by higher number of copies.

To get circulation revenues back up, several publications have introduced bundled offerings across genres or languages and magazines. Many publications have also tried to sell a combined deal of physical print and premium digital news offering.

Will print surpass digital?

The Covid pandemic gave a strong push to the digital medium, with readers halting their physical newspaper subscriptions and shifting to digital forms of consumption. This acted as a catalyst for e-papers and digital apps, with many asking the big question: will print be able to get more revenue for advertisers than digital? Well, it already has.

According to the report, digital news subscription reached around Rs 1.2 billion primarily for premium and exclusive content in the last fiscal. But Indian readers spend only one per cent of their reading time on news and information apps. This means their exposure to ads on digital news platforms is hardly doing wonders. Most print companies generate less than 5 per cent of their revenues from online news. And due to the plethora of free news platforms available, subscription products like e-papers, ad-free news or exclusive content cannot be as lucrative as print, say experts.

For instance, Jagran Prakashan’s operating revenue for FY23 from print media (Dainik Jagran, Mid-day, Naidunia, I-Next, Punjabi Jagran and more) was a soaring high at Rs 1435 crore, whereas the revenues from digital channels stood at just Rs 85.66 crore.

“Except for Times Group and DB Corp, most news publishers had an extremely low proportion of app-based audiences. News publishers generate over 90 per cent of their MAUs on their websites, which serve fleeting and transient traffic, in effect becoming an ad-rate arbitrage business with extremely high churn,” states the EY M&E report.

What the future holds

“You, as an advertiser, can’t do without print in many categories because it goes into the homes of rich and educated audiences,” said an industry expert.

In the EY report, it is anticipated that the print medium will reach a steady state with a loyal reader base in the next three to five years, touching the revenue mark of Rs 279 billion by 2025, most of which will probably come from the growing base of educated people entering the workforce who need news and information.

According to the analysis of print media companies by CRISIL Ratings, higher spending on advertisement by corporates in key sectors and an uptick in government ad spend in view of the upcoming state and general elections are expected to lift the revenue of the Indian print media sector even more.