Print media in India

Indian print media is one of the largest print media in the world. The history of it started in 1780, with the publication of the Bengal Gazette from Calcutta.

It is relevant to note an anomaly here that circulation alone cannot be considered as parameter of quality of newspaper. Impartial, professional newspapers may also have smaller circulations based on geography, reader class and language.

History

James Augustus Hickey is considered as the "father of Indian press" as he started the first Indian newspaper from Calcutta, the Calcutta General Advertiser or the Bengal Gazette in January, 1780. In 1789, the first newspaper from Bombay, the Bombay Herald appeared, followed by the Bombay Courier next year (this newspaper was later amalgamated with the Times of India in 1861).

The first newspaper in an Indian language was the Samachar Darpan in Bengali. The first issue of this daily was published from the Serampore Mission Press on May 23, 1818. In the same year, Ganga Kishore Bhattacharya started publishing another newspaper in Bengali, the Bengal Gazette. On July 1, 1822 the first Gujarati newspaper the Bombay Samachar was published from Bombay, and is still being published. The first Hindi newspaper, the Oodunt Marthand began in 1826. Since then, the prominent Indian languages in which papers have grown over the years are Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Assamese, Urdu and Bengali.^[1]

The Indian language papers have taken over the English press as per the latest NRS survey of newspapers. The reason being the growing literacy rate. Increase in the literacy rate has direct positive effect on the rise of circulation of the regional papers. The people are first educated in their mother tongue as per their state in which they live for e.g. students in Maharashtra are compulsory taught Marathi language and hence they are educated in their state language and the first thing a literate person does is read papers and gain knowledge and hence higher the literacy rate in a state the sales of the dominating regional paper in that state rises.

The next reason being localisation of news. Indian regional papers have several editions for a particular State for complete localisation of news for the reader to connect with the paper. Malayala Manorama has about 10 editions in Kerala itself and five outside Kerala and two abroad (Bahrain and Dubai). Thus regional papers aim at providing localised news for their readers. Even Advertisers saw the huge potential of the regional paper market, partly due to their own research and more due to the efforts of the regional papers to make the advertisers aware of the huge market.

Metrics

Newspapers in India are measured on two parameters, circulation and readership.

Circulation

Circulation is certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations which is an industry body. It audits the paid-for circulation of the member newspaper companies.

List of newspapers by circulation

The figures were released recently by Indian Readership Survey conducted by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC)^[2].

Here is the run-down on the numbers: Top 15 Newspapers in India

• Sr. No Newspaper Name Readership numbers
• 1 Dainik Jagran 54,254,000
• 2 Dainik Bhasker 33,432,000
• 3 Hindustan (local) 29,411,000
• 4 Amar Ujala 28,720,000
• 5 Lokmat 23,276,000
• 6 Daily Thanti 20,305,000
• 7 Sakshi 17,741,000
• 8 Dinakaran 16,741,000
• 9 Ananda Bazar Patrika 15,318,000
• 10 Eenadu 14,726,000
• 11 Rajasthan Patrika 14,205,000
• 12 The Times of India 13,447,000
• 13 Hindustan Times 6,254,000
• 14 The Hindu 5,140,000
• 15 The Telegraph 2,877,000
• 16 Deccan Chronicle 2,816,000

This is a list of the top 30 newspapers in India by daily circulation for the six month period ended 2008.^[3] These figures are compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

See also

• "Newspapers are not a sunset industry in India," says Jacob Mathew of Malayala Manorama
• List of newspapers
• List of newspapers in India
• Newspaper circulation
• List of newspapers in the World by circulation

References