ABC figures show decline in newspaper circulation; industry calls it artificial drop
Posted on 2nd Nov 2022
The audit, which was conducted for the January-June 2022 period after a gap of two years, showed a decline of 20-30% in the circulation figures
The newspaper industry believes that the drop in circulation numbers reflected in the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) data for the January-June 2022 period is “artificial” and not “perpetual” as many newspapers either did not participate in the process or excluded most of their editions.
The ABC recently conducted the audit for the January-June 2022 period. The audit, which was conducted after a gap of two years, showed a decline of 20-30% in the circulation figures.
According to Hormuzd Masani, Secretary General of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is unfair to compare the two different time periods and conclude that the circulation figures of the publications decreased. “This decline is artificial. Those are different periods and time zones," explained Masani.
Furthermore, he shared that many publications did not submit their circulation figures, which was the cause behind the decline. “We offered all publications a voluntary submission period from January- June 22. So many of them submitted while others did not. As a result, there is a decline, albeit an artificial decline." This was the first time that ABC offered opt-in and opt-out options to publishers because they certified figures after two years.
“It's only valid for one period, it's not perpetuity. So for the next period, most of them and all of them should be filing for July-December 22 and that would be the right figures to see the long-term trend. One can't conclude that print publications have gone down. Some of the topline publications did not submit their figures at all.”
The ABC data, accessed by exchange4media, shows that some national Hindi and English newspapers didn’t include all of their editions. For instance, HT Media only listed three editions for Hindustan Times, Lucknow, Patna and Ranchi. The Hindu didn’t list any edition for the audit. Similarly, Lokmat listed only Akola editions for both its Hindi and Marathi newspapers. Only some publishers, like Punjab Kesari, Malayala Manorama and Anandabazar Patrika, listed all their editions.
While speaking to exchange4media, Dhruba Mukherjee, CEO, ABP shared that during the lockdowns, newspaper circulation was hit initially due to supply side issues. “Though the supply side issues got sorted out over a period of time, extended lockdowns saw sales at outdoor stalls and institutions getting affected.
Also, there was an underlying fear amongst a small section of the society that Covid virus may get transmitted through physical newspapers, making them stay away from it.”
“All of this affected newspaper circulation by 30-50% in the initial months. After a prolonged recovery cycle, this has now stabilised to about 10-20% loss. A part of it (maybe 10-15%) will never come back as media consumption habits have changed for a few over these two years, but the rest will,” Mukherjee added.
According to Mukherjee, every newspaper is working on content, pricing and marketing strategies to take their circulation to the pre-Covid levels. Given India’s vast population and increasing literacy levels, the opportunity is large, and backed by the unputdownable trust factor that print media still enjoys over all other forms of media, there is optimism on the trajectory, he shared.
“We got our regional daily Anandabazar Patrika (all editions) audited in the Jan-Jun 2022 period. We intend to get both our regional and English newspapers audited in the Jul-Dec period,” informed Mukherjee.
Similarly, Amit Chopra, Joint Managing Director, Punjab Kesari, shared that they listed all their editions for the audit. “However, the current audit figures show a decline in circulation numbers. After Covid there was a fear among people and hence they stopped buying newspapers for a while and the circulation for every publisher came down to 40-50%.”
“Subsequently, there has been a recovery of up to 85% in many places. But the recovery has stopped at 85%. Even if you look at the average, it will show a similar trend. Lot of people have just moved to digital and we don't know if they are coming back. All newspapers are really trying hard to bring them back by introducing new schemes and more, but will see the results in five- six months.”
Chopra also mentioned that the ABC data is very important because there were no certified numbers in the last two years. “Advertisers know what happened during Covid and this data gives a clear picture.”
Print publishing went through very difficult times during 2020 and 2021 in terms of distribution and advertising, said Varghese Chandy, Vice President, Marketing and Advertising, Malayala Manorama. The publication also listed all its editions for the audit.
Chandy added that though the situation has improved this year, newsprint availability and prices have now become a new challenge for the industry. “With this in mind, and the fact that the base year for the comparison has been taken as Jul-Dec 2019, it is quite natural to see a drop.”
He informed that publications in Kerala had the least drop in circulation across India. It showed less than a 14% drop. “We were fortunate to have the support of the government which ensured that our distribution network remained intact and had also assured the public that newspapers were least likely carriers of the virus. Along with advertising, we are now seeing a revival in our circulation as well and are moving towards our pre-Covid numbers.”
According to Chandy, circulation numbers are important to assess the strength of different publications and in the absence of IRS, ABC becomes an even more important currency for advertisers. “Internally, we are striving hard to reach the 2019 circulation numbers and should be able to reach our target in the next couple of months.”
The publishers made the decision to exclude their various editions from the audit due to the pandemic's impact on circulation numbers.
"We excluded some of our editions from ABC reporting for the period Jan-June 2022 because the numbers were low," said a senior executive of a national Hindi daily.
The last audit was conducted in 2019 for the period July- December.