Mumbai: Advertiser behaviour will influence print ad products says the FICCI EY Report. Advertisers are expected to increasingly favour higher-impact formats such as larger ad units, jackets and contextual placements, supporting yield improvement even as volume growth remains moderate.
Advertisers are expected to adopt a more outcome-oriented approach, evaluating print campaigns on performance parameters such as leads, store visits and brand consideration, rather than reach alone, which will lead to more integration between the newspaper and the mobile phone.
DAVP rate increase will augur well for advertising: Government advertising rates increased by 26% towards the end of 2025, providing a long overdue pricing reset. The rate revision should translate into an additional 2% to 3% overall increase in advertising revenues if government ad volumes sustain, based on EY estimates, of which it has conservatively factored in half the increase in the forward projections for 2026.
Higher impact would be seen for regional and smaller publishers, where government advertising functions as baseline revenue rather than incremental upside. The report also expects news brands to create custom products for CTV audiences, which have grown significantly and provide higher ad yields than mobile devices.
Events will remain revenue and engagement engines: Events have emerged as a non-negotiable revenue stream, with publishers scaling up prestigious awards, concerts, exhibitions and conclaves to bolster their revenues. Growth in this segment is expected to be robust, as these events solve business challenges for advertisers, as well as market the news brand through event promotion
The strategy will move beyond event volume to high-margin prestigious events that create direct engagement with high-net-worth individuals Given the popularity of reporters and journalists, it also expects news brands to build-out their influencer marketing platforms.
Audience behaviour will redefine news brands: Print consumption in India is increasingly bifurcated by age and lifestyle segments. Older and professionally engaged audiences continue habitual print consumption, driven by a preference for depth, structure, completeness and credibility Younger cohorts increasingly consume news through mobile-first, visual, and short-form formats across digital and social platforms, which focus on speed and ease of consumption.
All news brands will cater to both audience segments, with different strategies for each segment, across gathering, formatting, editing, marketing, dissemination and monetization; the report expectscto see many more products being created.
There will be a renewed focus on NIE: The News in Education (NIE) programme will see renewed focus and innovation, as print companies try to build a newspaper habit in young audiences Potential mandates from state governments to incorporate news and awareness within the school and college curriculum will create not only a growth in circulation to these institutions, but inculcate a reading habit with young audiences.
The report also expects to see more customised products created for corporate employees, SMEs, investors, women and other such communities, which focus on reader upliftment.
Credibility will be the currency against AI newsfeeds: As AI-generated summaries reduce referral traffic by 30%, publishers will establish credibility standards to differentiate human-verified news.
A governance-first approach to AI adoption is expected to become a competitive differentiator, enabling publishers to leverage automation while preserving editorial integrity and brand trust. The industry will formalise data licensing deals with AI platforms to ensure fair compensation for proprietary content training.
Hyperlocal depth will differentiate winners: Publishers will increasingly adopt a super hyperlocal strategy by deploying deep reporting teams at the tehsil and district levels Granular content that global platforms cannot easily replicate will be the key defense against commoditised digital news.
Solving for circulation:
The industry is expected to solve for distribution: The print segment is considering various options to continue doorstep delivery of newspapers, including reducing the agents’ distribution efforts, increasing remuneration, enabling agents to increase their income through incentives, managing the gig-economy workplace, etc.
Retention will be prioritised along with reach: News media will position themselves more firmly using the planks of correctness (trust), completeness and curation.
The emphasis is shifting towards depth of analysis, opinions and trusted viewpoints to differentiate the print product from commoditised digital news Several publishers noted that as households move towards a single newspaper, sustaining relevance through sound positioning with the core reader base has become as critical as trying to grow reach. Correspondingly, bundling offers will also increase with both digital and physical products
Premium and exclusive content is expected to define magazines: For magazine and niche publishers, the focus will be on a niche-premium-exclusive content mantra, targeting affluent audiences This shift is driving a move towards higher cover prices and subscription models that prioritize reader engagement through quality content that cannot be accessed online or – for that matter –on any other platforms
Communities could unlock transactional revenue: News brands have achieved relatively lower success in monetizing digital audiences through subscription products. The report expects news brands to collaborate in this space and market a unified India news portal to online audiences in the middle term, covering audio, video and text products across languages, and bring in a windowing strategy on recent and premium news content.
While efforts in that direction will continue, the focus will shift from broad reach to also building micro-digital communities in sectors like education, automobiles, gadgets, sports, finance and matrimony.
Successful community models will generate spinoff revenue streams through transactions and IP-led events
Quick commerce could become the digital magazine newsstand: With the physical distribution network shrinking, magazines are aggressively pivoting to quick commerce platforms E-commerce partnerships for physical copies are expected to replace the impulse purchase behaviour of the traditional newsstand Availability is scaling rapidly with plans to expand from metro centers to over 40 cities
