How viable would it be to make the newspaper free in India?

Hormusji N Cama, director, Bombay Samachar,

In that scenario, the costs of a newspaper would have to be covered by the advertiser. He said that newspapers will have to ask themselves what they are selling – an advertorial or news. “A free newspaper is nothing more than an advertorial,” he said.

Sunil Mutreja, president, Amar Ujala,

For any business house to come up with a free newspaper, it had to start with free newsprint. “Will anybody give me that?” However, he added that free newspapers could work if they were also niche targeted. For example, there could be a paper catering to the youth and backed by advertisers from youth brands, which could be distributed free at places such as McDonald's, Barista and Cafe Coffee Day.

Mutreja raised the issue of advertisers’ perceptions of a free newspaper. “Advertisers felt that a Re 1 daily would be read only by rickshawalas. Just imagine what the perception of a free newspaper would be!”

Rajiv Jaitley, president, marketing and ad sales, Dainik Bhaskar -

Stressed that there are no free lunches. The real question, he said, was whether the free newspaper would be going to the right segment and whether the advertiser would be getting the right value. “If you are going mass, it will be just wasted.”

Paulomi Dhawan, vice-president, media and corporate communication, Raymonds - dispelled the myth that a free newspaper is funded by the advertiser and said, “The advertiser is not paying for the editorial. The advertiser is paying for the value he gets. He is paying for segmentation and the response he gets.”

HOW WAS IT DONE IN SINGAPORE?

PN Balji, editorial director of MediaCorp, which runs the free daily, Today, in Singapore, disagreed with Dhawan. The eight year old Today, which has a print run of 300,000 copies, has been making a profit for the last four years.

Balji gave five reasons for the success of Today’s business model.

The first, was that it was competing with The Straits Times, which had been in existence for more than 160 years and which controlled the entire vendor market.

The second reason, he said, was to provide quality content that “had the look and feel of paid content”.

The third reason, he said, was to put up a double agent model at the top level. “A person who is the editor should be the publisher/chief executive officer as well, so that one knows where to draw the line in the marketing and editorial pull.”

The fourth reason, he said, was “while other newspapers gave the ‘what’ of news, Today decided to give the ‘why’ of news”.

The fifth reason, he said, was the distribution, which went beyond the underground train system. “We decided to go to universities, offices and homes.” Today created its own distribution network.

Asked how they prevented people from taking copies in bulk -

They had their own men giving away copies at strategic points. These men worked on a salary basis, rather than on a commission basis.

Summary : “paid model going free would not work. Business houses would have to find niches.”