Print media in India

History

Indian press started from Calcutta, the then first colonial establishment of the East India Company. Since Calcutta was first to come under the British rule in India it opened to western values. 'James Agustus Hickey'is considered as the 'father of Indian press' as he started the first Indian Paper the 'Bengal Gazette' in 1780. The first paper in an Indian language was Samachar Darpan in Bangla. The prominent Indian languages in which papers have grown over the years are Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu and Bengali. [ [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=D2H7ByahsJ0C&printsec=frontcover#PPA1,M1 Capitalism, Politics and the Indian Language Press] India's Newspaper Revolution - Robin Jeffry]

The Indian language papers have taken over the English press as per the latest NRS survey of newspapers. The main reasons being the marketing strategy followed by the regional papers, beginning with Eenadu, a telegu daily started by Ramoji Rao. The second reason being the growing literacy rate. Increase in the literacy rate has direct positive effect on the rise of circulation of the regional papers. The people are first educated in their mother tongue as per their State in which they live for e.g. students in Maharashtra are compulsory taught Marathi language and hence they are educated in their State language and the first thing a literate person does is read papers and gain knowledge and hence higher the literacy rate in a State the sales of the dominating regional paper in that State rises. The next reason being localisation of news. Indian regional papers have several editions for a particular State for complete localisation of news for the reader to connect with the paper. Malayalam Manorama has about 10 editions in Kerela itself and six others outside Kerela. Thus regional papers aim at providing localised news for their readers. Even Advertisers saw the huge potential of the Regional paper market, partly due to their own research and more due to the efforts of the regional papers to make the advertisers aware of the huge market.

Current Scenario

The Indian Newspaper industry is one of the largest in the world. It publishes the largest number of paid-for titles [ [http://www.wan-press.org/ World Press Trends] ] in the world

Metrics

Newspapers in India are measured on two parameters. Circulation and Readership.

Circulation

Circulation is certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations which is an industry body. It audits the paid-for circulation of the member newspaper companies.

Readership

Readership is estimated by two different surveys, The Indian Readership Survey (IRS) and the National Readership Survey (NRS).

References