Political India: Engaging America

The Southern Frontier

After more than 125 years of towering like a colossus above the media world in south India, The Hindu is at a crossroads. For the first time in its history it is facing the prospect of serious competition, entering the arena as not one but two serious challengers. The Deccan Chronicle (DC) launched its Chennai edition on 28th March 2005, and the old lady of Boribunder, the Times of India (TOI), is hitching up her skirts and heading south later this year.

Although both papers are financially in strong positions to take on the Mount Road Mahavishnu in its home turf, it is the TOI’s brand value that is likely to cause the people at The Hindu some concern. However the limits to this concern ought not to be exaggerated. For starters, the TOI’s target audience is a younger cohort than The Hindu’s- approximately 18-40 year-olds. The Hindu has aimed, for the last several decades, to be relevant to the interests of those in the 30-50+ age cohort. While the groups certainly intersect, the fact that they diverge at all implies that the outcomes of this battle for media supremacy in TN could be different from that observed in Delhi over the last decade (where the TOI and Hindustan Times targeted more or less the same groups).

Second, even within the groups that will be the common targets of both papers (and indeed of the DC) the battle is by no means decided since all three contenders have a shot at expanding readership and circulation through more sophisticated marketing and advertising strategies. As mentioned before, all three papers can afford to finance such strategies, respectively because:

1. The Hindu: Has been the market leader for over 125 years in south India
   
2. TOI: Held a dominant position in a number of north Indian states
3. DC: Recently had an IPO raising a little more than 100% of its annual turnover

The dynamics of this factor, however, favour The Hindu. Even the TOI’s powerful ‘page-3-policy’ may not suffice to break the vice-like grip that The Hindu has on readers in Tamil Nadu. As suggested in an earlier post, the latter is widely regarded as a way of life and a lasting institution in these parts. What’s more, The Hindu also has a USP- a content-heavy, serious attitude towards journalism that sets it apart from virtually every other English daily in the country. No university department in India, nay the world, would ever ask its graduate students to study the TOI as part of their master’s degree in political science, economics, communication or journalism. The same cannot be said of The Hindu.

In fact this USP points the way forward for The Hindu itself, if it wishes to emerge from the upcoming media wars unscathed. Like The Guardian has stood the test of (The) Time(s) and resolutely held fast to its principled journalism in England through the onslaught of Murdochian marketing, so too can The Hindu in India. There is, of course, nothing preventing it from being ‘contemporary, yet classic’ (as its recent makeover surgeon Mario Garcia has tagged its cosmetic surgery), and indeed making new inroads into serious journalistic accomplishment as it has always done in the past. And lest we forget, there’s always potential for this south Indian goliath to turn towards the old lady of Boribunder and start determinedly walking in her direction!