The October 25 English edition of India Today magazine carried, what in journalistic parlance is called, a scoop. Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress Party’s senior-most leader, posing with his feet up on an ottoman, confessed to an India Today reporter that he was resigned to not becoming the prime minister, ever; and that he would not join a Rahul Gandhi-led cabinet. It was the first provocative political story to have appeared in the magazine in a long, long time.
After years of conceding its bark and bite, the magazine caught the attention of practically everybody in the media business. Wasn’t this the same title that was content following the agenda set by television and daily newspapers? “India Today was once the voice of God. It was at the centre of the national discourse in the late ’80s and early ’90s,” says Tarun Tejpal, editor of newsmagazine Tehelka, who worked at India Today between 1988 and 1993.
Tejpal says it was exemplary for reportage and for producing tidy, thought-through stories. “It was the voice of a new kind of journalism in the ’80s. Today it is just wrapping up the news for you.’’
But the 35-year-old magazine now has a feisty 60-year-old M.J. Akbar as editorial director. As things turned out, Mukherjee had casually told Akbar what was on his mind. At the next edit meeting, Akbar promptly commissioned a story on Mukherjee. When asked what if Mukherjee denies the whole thing in a formal interview, “We’ll still run the story,” Akbar said without blinking. Since he’s taken over, sources at the magazine say, he’s commissioned at least half a dozen edgy cover stories, most of which are around Indian politics.
While he has editor-in-chief and owner Aroon Purie’s full backing, the marketing think tank at the group is believed not to be too happy with the return-to-politics strategy. Ashish Bagga, the CEO of Living Media India (LMI), India Today’s parent company, says that no general interest magazine in India “can escape politics”. A source at the company says that their marketers’ research suggests readers don’t like cover stories with politics as the central theme. The magazine’s best-selling cover every year for the past several years has been sex surveys.
It is a theory Akbar’s predecessor Prabhu Chawla had bought into and articulated to the magazine’s editors and reporters when they gathered for a two-day brainstorming session at Delhi’s Taj Mahal hotel in 2002. “Politics and states were barely discussed,” says a reporter present at the meeting. Chawla said the magazine’s target audience is the young and upwardly mobile. Since then, the magazine has tried hard to shed its lineage and focus instead on lifestyle, travel, health and Bollywood. “But I don’t think they’ve been able to overhaul their product to appeal to the current generation of readers,” says the Starcom MediaVest group’s CEO for South Asia, Ravi Kiran.
Bajaj Auto, a permanent fixture on India Today’s back cover for more than three decades, snapped the relationship recently. Explains Amit Nandi, vice president at the company, “It was like wallpaper. It didn’t matter whether or not we were in the magazine.” India Today had stopped reaching out to Bajaj’s mass-market audiences in Tier II and Tier III cities, he explains. Nandi reckoned Bajaj could sell its premium bikes to audiences better through automobile magazines. “From our point of view, India Today is no longer the first port of call in magazines,’’ says Ravi Kiran.
Instead, half its readership now comes from Mumbai and Delhi. Its total readership has shrunk from 27.8 million (in 2007) to 17.8 million in the first quarter of 2010, though the trend has dogged the industry as a whole.
Insiders say Purie was often unhappy with the transition and three years ago even privately suggested to senior editors that they should think about converting India Today into a monthly. That, Purie argued, would give editors room to step back more often and come up with compelling ideas. But Chawla and others in the management reckoned this would dilute the brand. In fact, one senior manager suggested they publish twice every week. But that was in 2007. A year later the global economy went into a tailspin and LMI posted losses of Rs. 30 crore on revenues of Rs. 375 crore for the year ended in March 2009.
Bagga says advertisement revenues were down 15-20 percent. Print runs on all titles were slashed and the company consumed 10 percent less print than it did the previous year. It merged the marketing and sales staff of India Today’s peripheral brands such as Spice and Aspire. All promotions and marketing activities were stopped. Bagga says salaries were frozen, but no editorial positions were cut. The senior management also took a 20 percent pay cut. Purie, Akbar and Chawla declined to speak to Forbes India for this story.
Business has bounced back. The number of ads in the first 21 issues of India Today increased from 642 in 2009 to 765 in 2010. Bagga says the publication business was profitable in the previous year as well. It was just that other parts of LMI lost money. That said, India Today is still top dog. With a readership of nearly 18 million and according to Bagga, an advertising share of about 60 percent among its peer group, it is still a formidable leader. Business may have improved, but reviving editorial is a much more arduous job.
Yesterday
By the mid-1990s, the English edition of India Today was the undisputed leader selling over four lakh copies. Its reign was, however, about to be challenged. Tarun Tejpal left India Today and after a brief stint at the Indian Express group joined Vinod Mehta to found a new weekly newsmagazine, Outlook.
(This story appears in the 05 November, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
india today magazine in the 1980s and early to middle 1990s was the top most read for anyone around the world interested in india and its happenings, they did indeed have a formidible team of dedicated reporters and photographers who were in the thick of things be they politics, the bhopal carbide disaster. industry, terrorism in india. indian film industry etc. today however those types of new storys just arnt there and theres no intensity. the 1970s-1980s early-midd 1990s were massive and so was this great indian icon india today magazine.
on Feb 2, 2014I hope N.Ram, of The Hindu, will follow in the path of Arun Poorie
on Nov 8, 2010"A source at the company says that their marketers' research suggests readers don't like cover stories with politics as the central theme. The magazine's best-selling cover every year for the past several years has been sex surveys" So, India Today has been targeting urban, upper-middle-class, teen-age, idiots for the last decade. But, what I can't believe is that it took a decade for a person of the intelligence & experience as Arun Poorie - a decade to understand the folly of such an editorial policy.
on Nov 8, 2010At last Aroon Purie has woken up from slumber and brought MJ to refurbish the magazine and Pranab's interview is the answer. I think magazine will again scale height and will become the leader once again.
on Nov 6, 2010