Issue 11, dated March 1, 2005
 
 
Reduce your costs through the outsourcing route. Let Chronosphere provide you a free on-site Service Requirement Study to document what all could be outsourced, the new processes and the total cost savings. Mailto publisher@chronosphere.biz
 
The Indian government has slashed the import duty on printing presses by 50 per cent from the financial year April, 2005 to March, 2006. More…
Left-leaning Federal information and broadcasting minister S. Jaipal Reddy, in a surprise move, announced that his ministry was keen on enabling direct investments by foreign institutional investors in print media companies in India. More…
The English daily newspaper market in the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), is all set to witness a major war. More…
The dormant, but widely spread publishing group of Indian Express, has finally woken up. Debt-ridden Indian Express Newspapers (Bom) Ltd, which has several daily newspapers, magazines and online media vehicles, has now started working on coming out with an IPO to raise finances to “launch newer titles and expand existing ones”. More…
Reader’s Digest, the longest-surviving foreign title in the country, is expecting over 40 per cent revenue growth this year. More…
Amoung the new launches planned are the Kolkata edition of English business daily Financial Express, talent magazine Platform, Chenai edition of English daily The Pioneer and Chandigarh edition of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran. More…
Advt: International awards program for B2B magazines:
The Tabbie Awards, which recognizes worldwide excellence in trade, association and business magazines, is underway for 2005. The official Call for Entries is available at the TABPI website, www.tabpi.org. More…
Feedback/Subscribe: We welcome specific suggestions / questions for enriching the content of Indian Media Observer. Please provide us your feedback. If you want your colleagues/friends to receive this newsletter every month and remain updated with developments in Indian media, let us have their email ids.
Unsubscribe: If you are unrelated or have no interest in publishing, we encourage you to please unsubscribe. The Indian Media Observer is being distributed to publishing companies and all businesses relating to publishing around the world. The distribution is through various trade bodies as well as Chronosphere’s own database. In case you receive this newsletter through a trade body of which you are a member and in case you do not wish to receive it, please contact the related trade body. In case it is coming to you directly from Chronosphere and in case you do not wish to receive it, please click here to remove your listing from Chronosphere’s database.
Payments: The newsletter Indian Media Observer is intended for free distribution to members of various trade bodies with which Chronosphere has a relationship. Free subscriptions are being offered to other serious publishing professionals as well. However, annual subscription fee of Indian Rs 250 or USD 5 or GBP 3 or Euro 5 is welcome from willing readers. Please rest assured that there is no compulsion for you to pay. Willing readers may send their cheques favouring "Chronosphere" to IMO subscriptions, Chronosphere, B48/101, Parishram, Anand Nagar, Dahisar (East), Mumbai – 400068, INDIA.
Advertise: Indian Media Observer is a monthly newsletter, the current issue of which is being broadcast obligation-free to several publishers through their respective trade bodies as well as to Chronosphere’s own restricted database of publishing professionals across the globe. Chronosphere provides no guarantee that the trade bodies will carry advertisements in their version of the newsletter while further distributing it to their respective members. However, the advertisements will be carried in the newsletter version that goes out to Chronosphere’s own database. Only text advertisements will be carried in the newsletter, with a limit of 30 words, including the words “Click Here”. Each such text advertisement will cost Rs 5,000 or USD 115 or GBP 65 or Euro 100 per month per insertion.
Disclaimer: Chronosphere or its CEO Bhupesh Trivedi or Chronosphere’s distribution partners take no responsibility for any claim made by other agencies, companies or individuals, nor for any action taken by readers based on the information provided within this newsletter.
 
 
Import duty on printing presses slashed by 50 %:
The Indian government has slashed the import duty on printing presses by 50 per cent from the financial year April, 2005 to March, 2006.

In the federal budget of income and expenditures presented by the finance minister, P. Chidambaram, to the Indian Parliament’s lower house on February 28, the import duty on printing presses has been reduced from the current 20 per cent to 10 per cent from the next financial year.

However, though the budget announced the government’s resolve to reduce the peak import duty rate to 15 per cent most of the country’s imports, it did not provide any clarification on Indian publishers’ demand of reducing the import duty on newsprint and paper.
Govt. keen on allowing FII investments in print media:
Left-leaning Federal information and broadcasting minister S. Jaipal Reddy, in a surprise move, announced that his ministry was keen on enabling direct investments by foreign institutional investors in print media companies in India.

The minister’s announcement came even while a group of ministers (GoM) of the federal government is reviewing the aspect of foreign investments in Indian print media companies. “A Cabinet note to this effect has been moved and the government does not find any reason to not allow FIIs to invest,” the minister said.

Mr Reddy was however quick to add that his ministry was keen on retaining the limits on foreign investments (26 per cent in news-based publishing companies and 74 per cent in trade and scientific trade journals).

He further said that the GoM had also “informally decided” to retain the existing limits, whereas increase the limit of syndicated international content in Indian newspapers from the present 7.5 per cent. The GoM is, however, yet to work out the new limit.

If investment limits are retained, while FII investments are allowed, the share left for international publishers wanting to invest in India may actually go down.

Though some other members of the GoM openly supported proposals to increase the limits, Mr Reddy’s comments once create an air of uncertainty on what the final policy will be like.

It is expected that the government will announce a new policy on investments in Indian print media companies in about three months from now.
Mumbai set to witness a war of English dailies:
The English daily newspaper market in the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), is all set to witness a major war.

Bennett, Coleman & Co.’s The Times of India is by far enjoying an almost monopolistic situation, with a daily circulation of over 400,000 copies.

The stage is set to rock with the proposed launch of two more English dailies by two separate financially sound publishing groups.

The entrants are Delhi-based Hindustan Times, who have already announced their plans and schedules to launch their Mumbai edition, and a joint venture between television company Zee Telefilms and one of the fastest growing Bhaskar group of publications.

While Hindustan Times had announced a launch date in June, 2005, Zee-Bhaskar bosses are tight-lipped about their plans. It is expected that ex-Times of India honcho Pradeep Guha, who recently moved to Zee Television, will head this publishing venture as well.
Indian Express to go public in six months:
The dormant, but widely spread publishing group of Indian Express, has finally woken up.

Debt-ridden Indian Express Newspapers (Bom) Ltd, which has several daily newspapers, magazines and online media vehicles, has now started working on coming out with an IPO to raise finances to “launch newer titles and expand existing ones”.

Reports quote group CEO Shekhar Gupta as saying that the company was already in talks with three merchant bankers to plan out the IPO, size of the issue and stock issue price.

This publishing group, which enjoyed tremendous political influence over several decades, was going downhill in the wake of a split in the family and the publishing business as well as frequent shake-up of the senior-most management cadre.

Until recently, the situation within the group was such that it was shying away from international publishing companies wanting to join hands with them.

With the IPO, the group is expected to add some more fizz in the print publishing market in the country.
Reader's Digest expects over 40 per cent growth in revenue this year:
Reader’s Digest, the longest-surviving foreign title in the country, is expecting over 40 per cent revenue growth this year.

On the occasion of the release of the publication’s 50th anniversary issue, its publishing director Ajay Shukla said that they are experiencing record growth in paid subscriptions and market share in advertising revenues.

Reader’s Digest was the only foreign title, the publication of which was allowed within India for over four decades, even while the government imposed a ban on publishing of foreign titles/foreign ownership in Indian print media companies.
New launches:
Amoung the new launches planned are the Kolkata edition of English business daily Financial Express, talent magazine Platform, Chenai edition of English daily The Pioneer and Chandigarh edition of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran.

While the Delhi-based India Today group has already launched the magazine Platform, the dailies are in the process of launching their newer editions.

Financial Express is part of the Indian Express publishing group.
Advt: International awards program for B2B magazines:
The Tabbie Awards, which recognizes worldwide excellence in trade, association and business magazines, is underway for 2005. The official Call for Entries is available at the TABPI website, www.tabpi.org. English language b2b magazines across the globe are invited to enter the Tabbies, the second year for this exciting new editorial and design awards program. All entries for the 2005 Tabbies must be postmarked by March 23, 2005. Winners will be announced on or about July 1st, 2005.
 
 
The newsletter - Indian Media Observer - is produced by Chronosphere’s CEO Bhupesh Trivedi personally. Chronosphere is based at B205, Nirman Palace, Pump House, Andheri (East), Mumbai – 400093, INDIA.