At the Indian Magazine Congress 2024, BCG’s Nitin Chandalia & Sumit Solanki addressed the topic of ‘emerging models for new revenues for publishers’. Chandalia shared how in the past 5-7 years, whenever discussions with the publishing side have happened, a point that has generally come up is whether there is any growth opportunity
left. “Or do we just go shrinking against the tech giants, considering the way content consumption is changing?” he asked.

India will be the third-largest economy in the world. “We already are 1/5th of the global population. The number of people consuming content and the time that they spend consuming content of different kinds is going to change,” Chandalia added. As a market, he continued echoing Ananth Nath’s voice, India is an under-served market. “Magazines are the original influencers, content creators and community builders,” he continued.

In today’s day and age, with a proliferation of content all around, discoverability, credibility and referenceability are becoming a challenge, according to the speaker. “The opportunity lies in identifying the audience and going after them, and further building that community,” Chandalia said.

The global magazine industry ranges between $60 - $80 billion in size. In his presentation, Chandalia pointed out how the revenues declined by 1-2% in the last 5 years. However, digital grew by 10-12% in the same time and is now 35-40% of the market. The Indian Magazine Industry estimate stands at around $80-100 million. Some
key names in this industry are India Today, Femina, Filmfare, Businessworld, and Business Today among others.

Chandalia also shared that the Indian ad market is projected to reach $15.6 billion this year, with digital expected to become the largest segment. “While the number of audiences is increasing, time is getting split between TV, Digital/Online and Print. In India, print continues to be an important medium to consume content, unlike the
global landscape,” he said.

Delving deeper, Chandalia pointed out how the way news is consumed has evolved over the years. “The pattern of consumption there has changed significantly, from a ‘time of day’ driven event, for instance reading a newspaper in the morning, to news being consumed in ‘snackable’ formats,” he mentioned.

The duo also shared the new models that publishers are adopting to diversify their revenue – native advertising and sponsored content, crowdfunding/philanthropic grants, licensing and syndication, events/conclaves, content aggregators, dynamic paywall, micropayments, different levels of access and exclusivity.

Solanki shared some statistics from a Reuters survey with the audience, which said that 80% of respondents feel that subscriptions would be the most important source of revenue in 2024 due to the introduction of bundled packages and tiered pricing. “We need to play a bit around how to increase the premium on subscription,” he added.

Solanki also noted that while advertisers may or may not leave a publisher, if the content is right, readers will not leave. He shared the example of the Wall Street Journal which has been building AI based paywalls, which adapt to readers’ behaviours, to decide how many free articles should they get access to.

Speaking about crowdfunding and philanthropic grants, Solanki gave the example of how the likes of AP and The Guardian received $60 million in the last 3 years to establish a global team dedicated to climate journalism or other specialised coverage. He also highlighted how The Economist Group has built its portfolio over a long history through strategic acquisitions as well as organic extensions.

Solanki concluded the session with yet another example of Gannett and how it expanded its digital and events offerings and made key acquisitions to enter the digital marketing services space.