Not just imports, rising domestic newsprint cost deepens publishers’ burden: INS

For India's newspaper industry, the problem is no longer simply that newsprint is getting expensive. The bigger concern is what happens when one of the industry's most critical inputs becomes costlier at a time when publishers have limited room to pass on the increase.

Imported newsprint prices have risen by around 10% over the past year, with publishers facing pressure from geopolitical volatility and higher freight costs, industry leaders told e4m. India remains heavily dependent on imports, with nearly two-thirds of its newsprint consumption sourced from overseas.

The rupee has added another layer of pressure. At around ₹95 to the US dollar, it is roughly 10% weaker than the same period last year. Newsprint prices have now touched $650–700 per metric tonne, effectively around 20% higher than FY25 levels, publishers say.

Mohit Jain, Vice Chairperson of ABC and Chief Operating Officer and Board Member of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (Times of India Group), echoes the sentiments. “Newsprint prices have zoomed around 60 per cent over the past two years due to geopolitical situations and depreciation of rupees. When all businesses have passed on inflation to consumers, we are unable to do so as newspapers are for the masses and carry the responsibility to disseminate knowledge and information to crores of Indians,” Jain said. 

“For an import-dependent industry, that is not merely a macroeconomic statistic. It directly feeds into the landed cost of newsprint,” says Vivek Gupta, INS Chairman and MD of Sanmarg. 

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India's dependence on imports is partly structural. Gupta says the Indian newspaper industry consumes nearly 1.3 million tonnes of newsprint annually, while domestic production is only around 500,000 tonnes. “If local players make enough newsprint, we don't need to rely on imports,” he says. 

But this is where the industry's concern gets more complicated. Gupta says, “Domestic newsprint producers have also raised prices by 30–40% since March without any reason, despite no corresponding increase in their input costs. A few players have monopolised the newsprint market.”

As a result, he says, the price gap between imported and domestic newsprint has virtually disappeared, with the two now costing between ₹65-68 per kg, with a difference of barely ₹1–2. 

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“This has impacted publishers badly,” he says, underscoring the need for and rationale behind the 15% advertising surcharge proposed by the INS.  

A 15% rise, a bigger impact on margins

Canada has traditionally been among India's most important sources of imported newsprint, alongside Russia, with Australia, South Korea and Malaysia also forming part of the supply mix. Canada accounts for roughly 40–50% of India's newsprint imports in some periods, although the precise share varies depending on global pricing, availability and sourcing patterns.

Most news publishers have reported a steep rise in the newsprint cost in their FY26 financial reports.  Dainik Bhaskar, for instance, has reported an 13% increase in the newsprint cost. 

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Newsprint is also the single largest cost component for publishers, accounting for around 25–35% of overall material costs, including direct and indirect expenses, industry leaders say. 

CRISIL estimates that newsprint typically accounts for 30–35% of the operating cost of one of the leading Hindi dailies and has flagged volatility in newsprint prices as a key risk to operating profitability.

At a purely mathematical level, a 15% increase in newsprint prices, with newsprint accounting for 30–35% of operating costs, would translate into roughly 4.5–5.25% additional pressure on the existing operating-cost base, assuming volumes and all other costs remain unchanged.

Even a 10% increase would translate into roughly 3–3.5% additional pressure on operating costs. But the actual impact could be higher once secondary costs—including freight, warehousing, insurance, inventory carrying costs and currency movements—are factored in.

“For a publisher with a healthy margin, such an increase may be manageable. But for an industry where advertising growth remains modest and print's share of the overall advertising market continues to decline, it can materially alter profitability,” an industry expert says.

Cost pressures

HT Media's FY26 commentary explicitly flagged rising newsprint costs, amplified by the weakening rupee, global supply-chain disruptions, trade-policy uncertainty and geopolitical volatility, as a near-term concern.

That is significant because it suggests the issue is moving beyond industry speculation and into corporate financial planning.

For publishers, however, passing on the higher cost is not straightforward.

Newspapers remain a mass medium for disseminating knowledge and information, publishers argue, making affordability an important consideration. 

At the same time, print faces structural pressure from digital media, while advertisers are demanding greater measurability and publishers continue to invest in digital products and new revenue streams. 

The ability to simply raise cover prices or advertising rates is therefore constrained by competition and also because newspapers are a mass product. “Ours is the only mass media product which people can access spending Rs 5. Hence, inflation has hurt us badly.”

CRISIL's assessment reinforces the point: newsprint prices had remained moderate in FY26 but had begun inching upwards amid geopolitical uncertainty, while operating performance remained dependent on advertising recovery and newsprint costs.

The issue, therefore, is not simply how expensive newsprint becomes, but how much of that increase publishers can absorb without giving up margin.

The 15% surcharge dilemma

This is where the newsprint story connects directly with the Indian Newspaper Society's recent recommendation of a 15% advertising surcharge.

The INS had advised member publications to levy a 15% surcharge on advertising from August 1, citing rising newsprint and other operating costs. But, as e4m subsequently reported, most publishers have been reluctant to implement the increase uniformly, wary of advertiser resistance in a difficult market.

The dilemma is straightforward: publishers need to recover rising costs, but the very market conditions that are driving those costs are also limiting their ability to raise prices.

That leaves publishers caught between two pressures—higher newsprint costs on one side and limited pricing power on the other.