EDIT BLOG | NOVEMBER 2021
Some publishers will not change and will continue to wait for the weather to change – not understanding that the weather is a symptom and not the cause of change . When will they start spending and doing something to change their publications ? According to expert insiders , despite their laments and thriftiness , newspaper owners understand that the transformation is omnichannel – both print and digital . To effect change , to highlight premium and worth paying for exclusive content , to build digital paywalls and subscription models – technology and resources are needed and can no longer be delayed .
It ' s good to hear that some publishers are buying new software and , since it does not work without new spec computer hardware and cyberinfrastructure – this is also being bought or leased . The question is when will the print infrastructure also be streamlined , automated , upgraded , and expanded and what are future contours of the Indian newspaper pressroom that can one expect ? What is the vision and will spending start , and what are they looking to spend on ? What has happened to the plans of several newspapers that were looking to add presses before the pandemic ? In a time when newspapers will need to reduce waste , 533 mm cut-off presses will become a necessity to be competitive .
Some of the significant daily news media groups are stuck with double-width and double circumference 560 mm presses while others have large investments in 546 mm presses . The straight saving on newsprint in switching from 546 mm to 533 mm is 2.3 %. One cannot expect the bigger dailies with large presses to decommission them , but these presses are now obsolete and expensive to run . They need modernization , new drives , electronics , and automation .
There is another large group of newspapers that were planning to make investments before the pandemic to replace very old machines . These publishers must buy presses – logically 533 mm cut-off presses and perhaps even jumping to a smaller cut-off or a new format if they are bold .
Weather forecast
We are expecting investments by some of the 50 dailies with obsolete presses or their contract printers in not just new color towers but in new single-width , web offset press lines by the end of the 2022 calendar year . Keep in mind that government and political advertising have become a new business vertical for our publishers . Keep in mind the Rs . 130 crore ad budget of one of the larger states with an election around the corner that is already visible on the front page ads of every daily in North India . And keep the 2024 general election in mind . While one state politician successfully launched his daily in the pandemic , others are working on their news startups – they are neither waiting for either full vaccination nor the monsoon clouds to clear .
– Naresh Khanna editor @ ippgroup . in
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