Regional language dailies were the least affected during the pandemic. Ofcourse, advertising during the peak of the pandemic was few and far between but circulation has largely been intact. The drop in Kerala was minimal since the government had declared newspapers as essential service and had extended their support even during the peak of Covid. This meant that supply chains and distribution networks were intact. The fact that Malayalam dailies have the least drop in the latest ABC round of Jan-Jun 2022 is a testament to this.
This is in contrast to the situation for English dailies, which have had a drop of close to 50pc, especially in the metros.
The recovery in advertising has been good. We were able to exceed our advertising revenue during Q2 as compared to FY 2019-20. We hope that this positive trend will continue and we will be able to reach the targets we have set for ourselves
Learnings, Road Ahead
India thrives on diversity, where consumer habits and media consumption differ between regions. My submission is to not go by media projections of the entire country. Media planning should factor in nuances and preferences of each state. In Kerala, print is still the primary advertising medium and retail advertising is in print first followed by other mediums.
During the peak of the pandemic, amid lockdowns, what enabled us to operate and move forward was revenue from newspaper circulation. Being in Kerala, we were fortunate that newspaper cover prices are healthy across publications. The learning here is the need to have diversified revenue sources. Some of the others are:
- Focus on events and activations
- Move away from selling space to solutions and strategic partnerships
- Not just in the media, a general learning we’ve all had is that meetings can be done virtually. Though some of the most important interactions will be done physically, virtual meetings are here to stay.
- Media buyers should go back to the classic planning and buying model where choice of media should be based on the numbers that benefit the clients. We should get out of the discounting regime. This can happen only if advertisers, agencies and media work together.
(The author is VP – Marketing & Advertising Sales, Malayala Manorama.)
