With five editions, Sandesh has a strong readership base of over 4.5 million in Gujarat.

• All publications - dailies and magazines - experience drop in readership compared to the IRS 2006 Round 1, released in April 2006.
• Average Issue Readership (AIR) of dailies show that the reach has declined from the 21.6 per cent in Round 1 to 21 per cent in the second round.
• Magazines have experienced drop both on Average Issue Readership (AIR) - the drop is from 7.3 per cent in Round 1 to 6.4 per cent in Round 2 and Claimed Readership (CR) -the drop is from 14.3 per cent to 13.6 per cent.

Dailies:
Non-English

• 'Dainik Jagran' is the No.1 publication among language dailies with a readership of 18,190,000 million.
• 'Dainik Bhaskar' continues to hold the second spot among all the dailies with a readership of 13480000 million.

English

• 'The Times of India' leads the English pack with a readership of 6,920,000 million.
• 'The Hindustan Times' takes the second position with a readership 3,500,000 million.

Magazines:
Non-English

• 'Saras Salil' (Hindi) with a readership of 6300000 million tops the charts among non-english magazines.
• Malayala Manorama Group's weekly 'Vanitha' holds the second spot.

English

• 'India Today' is the highest read English magazine.
• 'Reader's Digest' follows at No. 2 position.

Business Dailies and Magazines:
Dailies

• 'The Economic Times' is the clear, undisputed leader among financial dailies.
• 'Hindu Business Line' takes the second position with a readership of 147000 million.

Magazines

• 'Business Today' leads among business magazines.
• 'Business India' comes second among the business magazines.

For a table on the top tens (dailies and magazines) click here

2) Present and future of the Indian Magazine Industry:
Ashish Bagga, CEO, India Today Group in one of the sessions made observations about the current scene in the Indian magazine industry and said that there has been an unprecedented growth in mainstream magazines, niche publications and B2B periodicals in India. The relatively liberalised policy regime laid down by the Indian government in the areas of licensing and syndication for print media have benefited the magazine industry by enabling the print companies to get the government's approval in just a year for 50 applications. He also added that there was still room for improvement compared to newspapers and other media forms in areas such as its share of advertisement revenues. Other area where magazines are facing challenges are - real-time constraints such as unrealistic norms for certifying paid circulation by the Indian ABC causing a mass exodus of magazines from its membership; research methodologies for national research studies were skewed towards newspapers; and huge pressure of talent acquisition and retention

In another session on the discussion about the future of magazines Aroon Puri Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, India Today ', saw a future where the cover prices of the magazines would go up, which according him was a healthy development. He also added that the opening of the print policy in terms of FDI and licensing would expand the market.

Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief, 'India Today', observed that the advertising spend on Indian magazines, in the past six months had grown by 31 per cent as well as the circulation.

3) The International perspective on Indian Magazine business
Micheal Brennen, president, Latin America, Reader's Digest giving his view on why he saw India as a promising market said that the vibrancy of India's democracy, the remarkably rapid growth of its market, the presence of a large community of English speakers which reduces the requirement of localising content, India's comparatively low-cost and reliable postal system as well a significant percentage of educated employee's, implying the presence of a potential market for print publications.

Brennen further sharing the general sentiment of the international publishers said that they all felt that it was comparatively easier to do business in India than China but less easy to make much profits and along with that is the problem of time wastage in gaining governmental approvals.

The Indian market, according to Carel Limburg of AxelSpringer, shows a lot of potential for joint ventures, licensed product and acquisitions.

Donald Kummerfeld, President of FIPP, UK (International Federation of the Periodical Press), said that most of the players are entering the Indian market as a long-term strategy, and wanted to find a definite time period for the gestation process, be it five years, 10 years or 15 years.

4) The inadequacy of the readership surveys:
Readership surveys were high on the agenda at the Indian Magazine Congress held in New Delhi. According to Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison Media said that the survey did indicate that the percentage of reach of the magazines was decreasing and that magazines need keep in mind the sharp literacy growth in the country and keep pace with it.

The panel was unanimous in its opinion that today's readership methodologies were inadequate for magazines, especially niche publications. Das of Hansa Research, the research organisation behind Indian Readership Survey (IRS), confessed that readership surveys do not do justice to the small media publications.

Krishnan throwing light on the reason as to why the readership methodologies are inadequate explains that the distribution pattern often varies among the magazines unlike television where a mass channel or a unique content channel is on the same platform. According to Das specialised surveys for special audiences could be the answer to evaluating niche magazines. He also suggested that another way for magazine publishers to agree on a common and separate currency for niche magazine.

There was also universal agreement that the focus should be on finding ways to market the media product more effectively.

5) Role of digital Media in print business:
While discussing about the role of digital media in the in the print business, there was a general agreement among the panelist that digital media was more beneficial instead of being a threat to the magazines as it provided low-cost opportunity in terms of distribution. According to Donald Kummerfeld, President, FIPP, ways of optimising the benefit of search engines needed to be found, which according to him offered both challenge as well as opportunity.

According to Sanjoy Narayan, Editor, Business Today the digital space compared to magazines in India was very small and whether the space was taken by paid of free site, neither was there any magazine site in the top websites nor was there any successful paid magazine website in India

Claimed as being a 'feel-good lifestyle' product, according to Manoj Khatri, editor-publisher, 'Complete Wellbeing' is targeted at people who have reached a certain stage of life, are doing really well and are looking forward to satisfying their higher needs. These needs can be emotional, psychological or related to health and the magazine aims to treat these issues in a holistic manner in a language comprehensible to even a layman.

Mike Brennan, Reader's Digest's President, Latin America/Asia Pacific speaking on the India operations said that to grow as a company, identification of more area would be required in order to augment the brand's presence in the country.

Living Media India (India Today Group), a licensee of the Reader's Digest, also holds equity in RDIBHE.

Plans of launching a Hindi edition of Reader's Digest are also being discussed.

* Pioneer forays into wellness and lifestyle space with 'Exotica'
Launched in Delhi on Saturday, October 7, 2006, 'Exotica' is an offering from 'Pioneer'. With the tagline 'Mantra for your well-being' the English daily and is aimed at the 35-plus executives. A holistic magazine, 'Exotica' will focus on de-stressing and encouraging people to be themselves through healthy living without being preachy.

* Dainik Bhaskar launches its Sagar edition
Close on the heels of launching its Amritsar and Jalandhar editions on October 8, the Bhaskar Group launched another edition, this time in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, on October 14. The edition was launched with 40,000 copies

* Amar Ujala launches Aligarh and Gorakhpur editions
Amar Ujala lauched its Gorakjpur edition in the month of October and has plans to bring out its Aligarh edition in the first week of December. With the Aligarh and the Gorakhpur editions, the paper will add its ninth and tenth editions, respectively.

*CyberMedia launches fortnightly, 'Voice&Data Connect'
CyberMedia launched its fortnightly, 'Voice&Data Connect' on December 1. The target readers of the 36-pager would be the telecom group's distributors, dealers, retailers, resellers, service providers, mobile manufacturers and broadband providers.

*Next Gen launches an exclusive commercial vehicle industry magazine
Next Gen Publishing Ltd, a JV between the Forbes Group and HDFC Ltd, launched a magazine dedicated exclusively to the commercial vehicle industry, 'CV' (commercial vehicle).

*Next Gen's another special interest genre offering - 'The Ideal Home and Garden'
Next Gen launched another special interest magazine, 'The Ideal Home and Garden' ('TIHG') dedicated to young homemakers, making it their sixth launch in 18 months. The magazine will carry topics such as house fashion, garden ideas, easy makeover suggestions, value-for-money shopping both at home and abroad and great gadgets.

*Planman Media launches 'The Sunday Indian'
The Planman Media, a division of the Planman Consulting, launched a lifestyle magazine, `The Sunday Indian'. The magazine would be featuring contents such as news, politics, lifestyle, economic trends, entertainment and global columnists -tailored to suit Indian readers.

*Approach Communications, to launch a rural sector fortnightly 'Gramin Today'
Approach Communications, a marketing communication organisation, plans to launch 'Gramin Today', a fortnightly for the Indian rural sector, on November 25th. The magazine aims to fill the gap between the available Hindi publications and the rural target audience.