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MEDIA MATTERS
Pink attack
SEVANTI NINAN
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In the wake of a surging economy, a dizzying number of financial dailies, in different editions, are being launched.
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PHOTO: A. ROY CHOWDHURY
Taking riches to the streets: A vendor selling IPO papers in Kolkata.
When Mint launched last year in India, the country overtook most nations in the world in the number of financial dailies it was willing to sustain. The paper was the sixth to enter the race, following DNA’s Money. Just a year later there’s another flock of business dailies on the horizon, enough to make jaws drop in much of the Western world. What’s it with the Indians? Particularly when there’s a global recession looming? Do they eat newspapers for breakfast and lunch?
Well, we are an upbeat sort you see, high on growth, and treat the annual Budget exercise as a prolonged fiesta of business and economy reporting. Each year, the ever-growing army of young TV reporters undeterred by their own ignorance or anyone else’s, fan out wherever they can, sticking mikes into a gamut of faces. One’s been watching the annual budget show (there used to be only one then) since 1986 and marvelling at how the annual prompting has increasingly produced sound bite-savvy men and women on the street. If you like the thought of passing television fame, you learn to have an opinion on the budget.
Have an opinion?
Even so, a Zee Business reporter came up short this year. She landed at a worksite and nabbed a labourer. “The Budget is coming, are you aware of that?” No, he said. “Do you have savings?” No. “Well, in a few days the finance minister will present a budget. Do you know who the finance minister is?” No. “If you could ask him for something what would you ask him for?” “I don’t know.”
Never say die. She moved on to another labourer, this time in a hard hat. “Do you know about the Budget?” No. She had better luck with the supervisor on the site. He had heard of the Budget, and had An Opinion. Something tells me that if she were to venture forth next year the script might be a little different. She might even find a guy in a hard hat reading a pink paper in the shade.
I’m not kidding. This is going to be the year of the Pink Vernacular. The media industry has decided that in a country of a few rich and many poor, one way to make the poor rich is to tell them about the stock market. It started early last year: the Economic Times launched in Ahmedabad and Mumbai in Gujarati. Last fortnight Business Standard launched a Hindi daily in Delhi and Mumbai. A few days later came the Economic Times in Hindi in Delhi. Last week Business Standard launched in Ahmedabad and Mumbai in Gujarati, with an ad line which said that over 35 per cent of stock market wealth was held by Gujaratis. A ding dong battle?
It is only the beginning. Three more Hindi business dailies are in the offing this year. Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala have announced theirs, Dainik Bhaskar has not, but is scheduled to join the race. The Jagran venture, in collaboration with CNBC TV18, will certainly not stop at Hindi, they plan a range of language business dailies. Meanwhile, when Deccan Chronicle launches its English business daily later this year it could well go further and have a Telugu financial twin. Certainly there is a Southern language space for this genre which the existing general interest or financial dailies will strive to fill.
Growing aspirations
Who will read these, be they pink or white? TV news channels across the board were assuming last week that the general public had an interest in the Railway Budget, the Annual Budget and Reliance Power’s issue of bonus shares, dumbing these stories down when necessary. There are traders and small businessmen everywhere who feel the need for more financial news than the dailies are able to give them on a single page. And going beyond that there are growing numbers of Indians who want to understand the stock market and whether they can tap it for their savings. Whatever the Left might say about the irrelevance of the stock market to the aam admi, it increasingly generates aspiration in many levels of Indians. Interestingly, while all major English dailies did not front page the Reliance Power story last week, all major Hindi ones did.
Nor is the English financial media space saturated. Last fortnight, even as Outlook editor Vinod Mehta was railing at a Delhi talkfest about the lamentable corporatisation of the media, his group launched its third niche publication in the business journalism space. It was called Outlook Profit, a magazine for investors. This follows Outlook Business and Outlook Money. Said its publisher to Agencyfaqs, “With markets pulling a rabbit out of the hat almost every day, I believe this is the perfect time to dedicate a magazine to the country’s financial boom.”
If the economy slows down will there be advertising to sustain all these publications? That really is the million dollar question. The years 1996-2002 are a distant memory now, but they saw a prolonged slowdown and the media industry really felt the pinch.
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