I Venkat, Director, Eenadu Group

"Invitation Price! What is right with it! It doesn’t even cover the cost of newsprint today."

I Venkat has been with Eenadu group for nearly 33 years. He was a part of the Eenadu group even before they launched the first edition of Eenadu newspaper from Vishakhapatnam in 1974. Then, he was into client servicing in now long closed ad agency promoted by the group. Now he is a director with the group, strategizing their media business. He defines his growth in the group "as a long exciting journey."

In this no holds barred conversation with Ritu Midha of exchange4media, he talks about the group’s vision, strategies, its rapid expansion and growth plans. We begin from the beginning...

Q. Your competitors would be looking at it now.

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Yes, they will. But how many people would want to invest in Indian market, especially language papers, is yet to be seen. First, they would look at English newspapers and then turn to large regional players who have large revenue and good circulation.

Q. Why did the group venture into the newspaper business? Why Vizag?

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In spite of Vishakhapatnam being the second largest city in Andhra Pradesh, the newspapers used to reach there in the evening. This, we realized was a need-gap. Hence, we decided to start a morning paper from there. We provided a morning edition to Vishakhapatnam and nearby areas. It was a big success. Hyderabad and Vijaywada editions followed. Concept of a newspaper being treated as a regular brand was not there in Andhra Pradesh before Eenadu was launched. We invented it, and it has proved to be immensely beneficial.

Q. Isn’t there already a clutter of Hindi channels? How will you compete with the big guns like Star, Sony….

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Star and Sony are operating at a national level. We are not looking at that market. We are focusing on state specific markets… content is state specific, language is state specific. For instance, it is Bhojpuri in Bihar and so on.

Q. Exploring another area, do you plan to get your number one Telugu channel position back from Gemini…

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Who won’t?

Q. How?

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There are a lot of plans. We have started putting our plans into practice; it would be another month before they are put into action in a big way. We expect to see the results of it in five – six months time.

Q. Doesn’t it increase circulation and readership?

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At what cost? It is a ‘robbing Pearl and giving Peter’ kind of scenario. It doesn’t even cover the cost of newsprint today. Invitation pricing was started by the Times group for a specific reason. Since then, there has been a lot of activity in the North. Fortunately, in the South it has not come so far. Only in Karantaka, Vijay Karnataka is doing invitation pricing to compete with Prajavani. But believe me, it is not a very beneficial policy.

Q. All the newspaper editions of Eenadu are in Telugu, while for channels, Eenadu has opted for various regional languages. Any specific reasons behind it?

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They are two different mediums. In television, if you have the hardware, you can get good people to produce good software. It is not a very big issue. In newspapers, it goes much beyond content. Local character of the people and that of news plays a very important role. Print is a long haul. Unlike TV, where anyone can become number one and number one can be unseated in no time also.

Q. Eenadu has started quite a few editions in the last few months. Why was the need to expand at such a fast pace felt?

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There is a demand for newspaper in the areas where we have started the paper. When we started in Mumbai, we hardly sold 1,500 copies, and half of them went to Gulf. Now the circulation is 10,000 copies, and increasing. Ultimately, it is the number game. Whoever will have the numbers will get the business. I think we are trying to keep ahead of the numbers and also fulfill the increasing demand.

Q. But you get same message with TV over and over again, while hardly anyone reads yesterday’s papers…

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TV messages are cryptic. There is much more depth in the printed word. Television, by and large, is entertainment oriented and not news oriented.

Q. Are these efforts bearing fruit?

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There is considerable increase in the number of ads in regional press and TV. Many of ‘only English language’ campaigns are now there in regional papers also. Many of them are in Eenadu now.

Mercedes Benz, an absolute up market product is only using Eenadu in Andhra Pradesh. If Mercedes Benz has done that - and they are continuing to advertise with us –they must be finding some value in it. Every time a new campaign breaks, they advertise with us.

Q. If TV channels can be run by outsiders, why such an opposition to FDI in print?

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There are a lot of historical reasons. Satellite TV is hardly a decade old phenomenon in India, while print has played a telling role in freedom movement. Some of the papers are even older than 150 years. They have stood by people of this country. They feel that they are being betrayed by bringing in FDI. Second thing is they feel it can affect the opinions of people.

Q. On to Eenadu.com, how is it performing?

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Extremely well. Top three Indian newspaper sites are Times of India, Hindustan Times and Eenadu. In fact, last month Alexa (an Amazon company which rates dotcoms on basis of traffic) rated us number one. However, now we have gone back to our number three position.

Q. Finally, What is the goal at Eenadu?

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To become a media giant!

Q. To be compared with Rupert Murdoch’s empire?

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I would love it to happen. Anyone would!

Q. But isn’t it very important to understand the audience you are catering to. Even in TV?

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Of course it is, and we do understand our target audience. Formula that we are following is slightly different from what others are doing. We have news as a component. Though, basically these are entertainment channels, we relay regional news at 7 every evening. We are in newspaper business, we have a very good network of news correspondents, and we give fairly strong news. In fact our programme on ETV Bangla ‘Aaamar Bangla’ is a top seed.

Q. Was that need not being fulfilled by Doordarshan?

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No, Doordarshan news is general news. It is not district and region specific. In addition to the regular news telecast, we have a five-minute news capsule every hour – from 6 in the morning till midnight.

Q. Are the programmes on the Hindi channels getting good TRPs?

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Numbers will not come now for the simple reason that numbers are in major towns. We will get numbers – it is just a matter of time. As of now, Bihar and Rajasthan are not covered as far as TRPs concerned. And between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, there are only four cities – Lucknow, Kanpur, Bhopal and Indore that are covered.

Q. Are you attracting advertisers?

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We have started getting business. In Bihar, particularly, we are getting a lot of business from Smithkline Beechams’ Horlicks. Though there are no numbers available there, they are advertising with us on a regular basis. If they were not getting value for money, they would have stopped. In Uttar Pradesh also we are getting business. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan it is taking time, but it would happen.

Q. If invitation pricing increases circulation, won’t it bring in more advertisers?

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It might but to what extent. There is threshold level. Beyond it nothing will come, even if your circulation is say 23 million copies. For those 23 million copies you would charge an X amount of money. How much will the advertiser be able to pay? And if he does not want to pay for that many copies, how do you cover your costs?

Q. How are your attempts to change the advertisers’ perception against Regional papers working?

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We actually started working on this bias some 20 years back. We have done a lot to change the perceptions related to regional papers. Malyala Manorama has done wonderful efforts and campaign in breaking this myth of English papers in Kerala. Even Jaagran and Bhaskar are doing something. Earlier Rajasthan Patrika was also involved in one such campaign.

Q. It has been some time for Eenadu’s four Hindi channels. How are they performing?

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Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are doing pretty fine. In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh we faced some problems on cable operators’ front. Situation has improved now.

Q. What are the timelines for the launch of Delhi editions?

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Delhi editions will be launched in a couple of weeks. Most probably, by the end of this month.

Q. Moving to another front, why is regional press against invitation pricing? What is wrong with it?

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What is right with it!

Q. Now that FDI has become a reality, would Eenadu look at it?

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As of now, no. We are opposing it.

Q. Print can change opinions, TV can’t?

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Written word has lot more power, and besides, you spend a whole day with the paper.

Q. Why did Eenadu group decide to close the ad agency?

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One of the major reasons was we had decided to start a newspaper and INS doesn’t allow you to be a media buyer and seller at the same time. However, there were several other factors – group’s interest was rapidly increasing in other fields and we needed to focus on those areas.

Q. Any other brands…

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Yes, quite a few. In fact, from Delhi we are getting a lot of office automation brands, which were only appearing in English papers at one time. We have broken the barrier.

Q. Eenadu is one of them. Have you got any feelers?

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No. And it is too early for that.

Q. Haven’t people got accustomed to Khadi boli as far as TV watching is concerned? How successful will different dialects of Hindi be?

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Different dialects are not the only thing we are offering. We are also providing them local news. They don’t get that on any other channel.