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Mr. Snehasis, what is your function at The Telegraph today?
At ABP Group, I look after Technology in Manufacturing of Newspaper. My function spreads from Prepress to the Operations of New Greenfield Projects and ends at Quality of Group’s print products. Quite a handful you might say.
Newspapers all over the world are struggling against the influence of internet and electronic media. They lose revenue, readers and circulation. Does this development affect India’s publishing houses as well?
Of course it does. Internet and electronic media are the fastest growing technologies that affect everyone over the world, India is no exception. One cannot put a blind eye on these wonderful tools for communication and information exchange. However, the loss of revenue and circulation hit us harder due to the recent economic recession rather than Internet ever. With the steady recovery of Indian economy and high GDP growth, the revenue is back on track, at least for the moment. Unlike many other countries, in China and India the downturn has not become a permanent loss.
One big lesson we learned that the changing media habits essentially lead to a Print media that has to be twice as fast and proactive in processing time management. Information and analysis turnaround time need to be closer to real time.
We are harvesting the ease and speed of Internet communication and related technology to get closer to this target. In this effort, we come together as a global community integrating faster and better processing in Print.
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Roy Snehasis
The Telegraph in comparison with US-American newspapers
One of the most serious impact newspaper houses have to deal with is the decline of display and classified ads. How would you calculate the position of The Telegraph in comparison for example with newspapers in the US (for example LA Times or NY Daily)?
Classifieds, yes we feel the squeeze. Display, not really. Run of the mill Print classifieds are declining primarily due to the relative ease with the crawlers (search engines). Prime classifieds are and would still be there due to the unquestionable integrity of printed word. Print still enjoy much better trust from the reader than the soft search results. There are huge and fundamental differences between the markets in India and US (with EU, many other developed economies). India, currently the largest consumer market in the world is poised to become largest by 2025. The middle class consumers (key market for daily newspapers) now at 50 million will become 563 million by 2025. There are many such indicators available in the recent MGI research reports. With 7.3% average annual growth projected for next 20 years, India has become the hot spot for multi-national investment. Every global consumer brand would be eager to get a piece of this pie.The display ads in India, therefore, will grow both in volume and rate for the next 20 years and beyond. Much of that will go to print if not majority.