- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
ALTHOUGH it saw a 35 per cent growth in toplines in the 2022 financial year on a lower base, revenues for the print industry will reach only 75 per cent of the pre-pandemic levels, a report said on Monday (5).
The sector’s revenue of Rs 31,000 crore in 2020 financial year, split 70:30 between advertisement and subscriptions, had gone down 40 per cent in the last fiscal when the second wave of the pandemic wreaked havoc. The same is expected to reach around Rs 24,000-Rs 25,000 crore in the 2022 fiscal year.
According to ratings agency Crisil, sharp cost rationalisation measures and digitisation of content will see a revival in profitability to 9-10 per cent. It admitted that the bottomline will grow despite the 20-30 per cent rise in newsprint prises in the last six months. The agency said while credit profiles of large print media companies will be resilient, shielded by healthy liquidity and strong balance sheets, liquidity management will be crucial for the remaining ones.
“The second wave has impacted ad revenues in the last quarter, as it correlates strongly with economic activity. We expect ad revenues to recover from the current quarter as economic activity revives,” top Crisil official Nitesh Jain said.
The sector is also said to be seeing a structural change amid a change in consumer preference towards digital news from physical newspaper, the agency added, pointing out that this more important in case of English newspapers, which have a higher share in metros and tier-1 cities, where digital adoption happens at a bigger rate.
The English dailies are working on monetisation of content by putting premium news items behind paywalls and pushing digital subscription along with print subscription, Crisil added.
Non-English newspapers, on the other hand, had relatively stronger subscription revenue even in the first wave because of strong roots in the hinterland, the agency said, adding that the overall subscription revenue loss in 2022 financial year will be limited to 12-15 per cent of that seen before the pandemic.
