"Print will continue on upward trajectory in India," Manish Tewari

The speakers included Anant Nath, editor, Caravan, Delhi Press; Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief and chairman, The India Today Group; Chris Llewellyn, president and chief executive officer, FIPP; Maheshwer Peri, chairman, Pathfinder Publishing; Tarun Rai, CEO, WWM and Manish Tewari, minister, information and broadcasting, government of India.

In his inaugural address on day one, Manish Tewari called upon the magazine industry to strengthen its presence in the digital and new media era by playing the role of an objective, analytical and authentic source of information. He said, ““The magazine industry should emerge as an objective and authentic source in the information-loaded world.” He continued to add, “Despite internet broadband penetration increasing at an enormous pace, the print industry will continue on an upward trajectory due to growth in vernacular and regional markets.”

In one of the panel discussions about curating content, Fiona McIntosh, editor, Grazia, observed, “As far as social media and content goes, we are living in very interesting times. Print media cannot compete with news dissemination, and that is where digital is streaming ahead. But what print media can focus on is getting viral through social media, and getting stories pushed through it.” Backing McIntosh, Sam Balsara, urged magazine publishers to shift focus from exposure to engagement.

The president of Diageo India and CEO-designate, United Spirits, spoke on approaches to innovation with examples. He said, “Innovations happen when you connect different dots and that is when you make a connection”

On the second day, keynote speaker, Rajan Anandan, VP and MD, Google India, highlighted the digital trends in India that magazine publishers could manifest their strategy around. He noted that the consumption of internet was growing, more so on mobile devices. The second big trend he cited was e-commerce. “The online travel market was $10 billion last year. 45 per cent of airline tickets are bought online. And non-travel (e-tail) is also growing. In another few years, it will stand at $16 billion. 20 million of the 200 million Indians online are buying online.”  According to him, publications with large offline circulation, such as The Times of India and Jagran, were big online too - more pronounced in case of English media. But he quickly added, “Vernacular consumption is growing at over five times as compared to English. While English is growing at 11 per cent year-on-year, vernacular is growing at 56 per cent.”

A panel on ‘Metros and beyond – The power of regional magazines’ discussed the nuances about the growth of regional magazines.

In a presentation, Mitrajit Bhattacharya, president and publisher, Chitralekha Group, pondered over whether language publications needed to strategise differently for metros and beyond. He surmised, “Marketing strategy is very simple – just follow your consumer.”

One thing was clear from the discussions and addresses, a magazine with good content and better strategies to reach out to the audience through various platforms, will continue to survive. The digital media can be as instrumental in driving the growth of the magazine publishing industry.