‘Bengali print media market to be worth Rs 800 cr by 2015’

Bengali medium already dominates 60 per cent of the Rs 900 crore state’s print industry.

“The increasing tilt towards digital media platform,coupled with the rise in literacy levels and higher disposable incomes,the appetite for media consumption is on the rise not only in Tier-II and Tier-III cities,but also in rural areas,” it said.

As of today,the combined readership of the top two Bengali dailies ‘Anandabazar Patrika’ and ‘Bartaman’ is more than five times the combined readership of the state’s top two English dailies ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘Times of India’,said the report.

“But all is not lost for the English dailies. The size of English publications market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9 per cent to reach a value of Rs 500 crores by 2015,” said the report.

Advertisements contribute 73 per cent of the revenue for Bengali newspapers while the figure is 86 per cent for English ones.

Keeping pace with the changing times and technological advancement,Bengali publishing houses have capitalised on the reach of the internet by releasing online versions of their publications.

“The publishers ensure advertisement revenues from the digital medium as well,” the study said while recommending that increasing digital circulation should be the medium term strategic priority for a majority of papers in the state.

“To attract more advertising revenues,vernacular publishing houses should focus on the Tier II and III cities,where an untapped educated population resides in search of quality print content,” it said.

Bengal Gazette,the first newspaper of India,was published in 1780 from Kolkata. While in 1818,the first newspaper to be printed in an Indian language was ‘Samachar Darpan’ in Bengali.

“To this day,West Bengal maintains its pre-eminence in the print industry in east India. With a population of 91 million and a literacy rate of 77 per cent,the state is a major market for the print industry,” the Ficci report said.