Will press grow in this last quarter in 2002 [Oct-Dec]? Or will the trends be contrary to expectations due to the overall slow-down? These are the questions in everyone's minds right now. And most sales and marketing professionals at Publication houses are keeping their fingers crossed till they turn white hoping that the festive season brings in some relief! Well, to understand the festive advertising spurt better, lets look at some quarterwise trends in print display advertising across the last few years.

The approach is very simple… and that is to plot the average increase that happens during festive season as compared to the first quarter. So in this entire article, all the numbers for Quarter 1 (Jan-Mar) are indexed to 100. For instance, any number in the other quarters lesser than 100 indicates a drop in revenues compared to Q1 and any number higher than 100 indicates an increase in revenues.

Now lets look at Press revenues for the last 7 years for quarterwise trends. Very interesting trends come to the fore as seen in Chart 1 below. For instance, if total press revenue for Q1 is 100, there have been years where that has dropped to 82 (an 18% drop in Q2 of 1996) or increased to 117 (a 17% increase in Q2 of 2000).

In fact, if we were to take an average of Press earnings by quarter over the last 8 years, the results speak for themselves. If total press earnings are 100 (indexed) in Q1, then Q2 and Q3 earnings are at a modest 103 and 107 respectively. However, the Q4 earnings in comparison to Q1 are at a whopping 36% increase at 136 (see Chart 2).

So the TAM ADEX team went ahead and tried to see if this increase was for all publications or only few capitalised on the festive season with special supplements and pages. The results are stunning. The increase for one publication versus the other varies dramatically as is evident in chart 3 below implying that sales and marketing efforts, special supplements and a big push to planners and advertisers goes a long way in attracting larger revenues.

For instance, if we pick up some top Newspapers in the 4 metros and their quarterwise performance averaged for the last 8 years. The performance of Thanthi [Chennai], Hindu [Chennai], HT [Delhi], TOI [Mumbai] and Loksatta [Mumbai] in generating good Q4 revenues after flat first 3 quarters is pretty interesting. On the other hand, you have ABP and Telegraph who consistently rise in revenues - their Q2, Q3 and Q4 revenues keep growing right across the year!

A look at magazines also shows that magazine revenues follow the same trend of greater earnings in Q4. However,

So what does this festive season hold for print? By the time this article comes out, all our colleagues in publication houses will be busy counting their moolah for this festive season. However, while we will still see an upward trend in press spends in comparison to the first 3 quarters, the increases are not expected to be as dramatic as previously witnessed. But that's at an industry level. Publication to publication level differences will surely continue and that will build the chasm between a 'Good Year' versus a 'Bad Year'. This aspect again comes across in Chart 5 below which plots the current year for key publications in the top 4 metros… while some have had a flat year so far, a few have consistently increased!

I am sure there are still a lot of questions in your mind still… like - which are the categories and brands that come in during festive and propel print versus those which stay away from festive. Or which publication groups are the biggest gainers in revenues versus the biggest losers. Keep checking this space for more on the same from the ADEX team!

Atul Phadnis, director, S-Group, TAM Media Research
[All views expressed are his own. All numbers are display revenues for print- courtesy TAM Press ADEX]