Newspaper Industry in India

About a week back, on responding to a comment by Raghavendra on my post on Personal Digital Gadgets, I started to look at the state of newspaper industry in US and world.

“In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets,” said Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, who analyzes the industry. Read more.

I have been in US for two years, and this does not seem surprising. Due to Internet, the people in US seem to have gotten used to getting news and information for free. The traditional newspaper industry, unable to come up with a way to deal with this, seems to be in soup. But those who distribute news and information supported by advertisement are giving competition to traditional newspaper industry. Laymen are using mediums like blogs. Even though they are not as big as the traditional industry, they seem to be doing ok. The effect of this is that advertisers are buying less from newspaper industry.

This does not seem to be the case in India.

“I do not see ads generating revenues enough to substantiate a firm. Internet penetration is low in India. Also, more brands need to take up this mode of advertising,” said Rajesh Srivathsa. Read more.

Seeing as it is, it seems like the newspaper industry will be staying alive in India for some more years.