Challenges facing by Indian Magazine Publishers

The Indian magazine industry inspite of the boom goes through a tough phase just like in other countries. Among the major hurdles is the growth of the electronic-magazine culture and increasing internet usage. This may indirectly affect the print advertisement industry which largely thrives on magazines and newspapers for visibility.

Moreover, newspapers have added supplements to their main issue and infringed on the content covered by magazines earlier. Television channels have launched in different genres that didn't exist a few years back. And with the increased penetration and adoption of the Internet in the country, more people are now consuming news and stories on different topics on the web and mobile.

But there is still a demand for high quality print content and magazines need to address it to avoid losing market share to other mediums. Along with this, they also need to explore and distribute their content on the web and mobile platforms to give choice to their subscribers to consume content from anywhere and at any time. With the growth coming from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, magazines have to expand their distribution channel aggressively in those locations and localize content where needed. Distribution is critical for a magazine since it has to be readily available and marketed to consumers.

But many Indian magazines lack technology, marketing, and capital to grow which has resulted in a handful of publications dominating the market. So, many magazines today need to channelize more energy into marketing and ad generation, which is mandatory to thrive in the tough competition.

So, while concentrating on marketing, equal importance should be given to contents. But many magazines today fails to strike a balance between the two.