The Times of London Appoints A Business Editor To Be Based in India. Now Why Would It Do A Thing Like That? Because It’s A Sign of The Times!

Philip M. Stone April 13, 2006

The Times has announced two appointments for India – its Moscow correspondent will become India editor, and it is transferring a London-based sports columnist to become India business editor, based in Mumbai. OK, the first appointment is understandable, but why does a London-based newspaper assign a business editor, rather than just a financial correspondent, to be based in India? Go To Follow Up & Comments

The clever answer is to say that the question itself is wrongly phrased. The correct question, to which the answer becomes more obvious, is why would a newspaper and its web site assign a business editor to be based in India?

According to Times editor Robert Thomson, “There is no doubt the rise of India will be one of the most compelling economic and political stories of this century. And there is no doubt that India will be one of the largest audiences for our business, economic, and cultural reporting through Times Online.”

So there you have a new strategy for a newspaper’s web site – that it recognizes that it is the World Wide Web out there and that its audience can come from anywhere in the world, and in this particular case, it is targeting a huge audience in India to drive in the advertising profits. Well, why not?

It’s the natural next step as newspaper publishers start to take an ever more aggressive stance in combining the editorial and advertising operations of their print newspaper and its web site.

The move by print to post its own news on the Internet has gone about 180 degrees in just a few short years. It started with holding news back from the web until the print edition hit the breakfast table. It then progressed to putting news on the web site in a timelier manner, but keeping back the exclusives for print. That went out the window when the media understood they were getting good branding from breaking stories on their web sites and besides, if they held on too long to their exclusives they could be beaten by leaks on their own story, and the policy ultimately changed to put just about everything onto the web site as it became available.

But web needs and print needs are often different and the main storywriters were primarily from the newspaper. Combining newsrooms and making top editors responsible for both print and web increasingly means the editorial needs of the web site are taken into account.

And now sending editors off to foreign lands in the hope they can play an integral role in capturing an audience within those countries willing and able to read what would be for them domestic stories available on a foreign newspaper’s web site is yet another extension of web news coverage.

For an English language newspaper to try this, India is as good a place as any to start.

Whereas print circulation is on the downside in both the US and Europe, India is a very healthy print market with total circulation up by 8% in 2005. It has the world’s second highest daily print circulation of 78.8 million with only China having more. So newspapers and their web sites are a growth market as more and more people come to the cities, are better educated, and English becomes even more dominant with Hindi and Urdu as the three main languages.

The Times of India has 2.6 million daily sales, making it the world’s largest circulation broadsheet English language newspaper. It has about 30% of all English language newspaper readers in India.

So the Times (of London) is not going to have an easy time attracting Indian readership to its own site with that type of domestic healthy media – with print, the Internet and television all growing very rapidly. . But no doubt The London newspaper is counting on its own international business coverage, plus its general international reporting combined with what it can produce from India itself to get Indians reading its web site in large enough numbers to attract the advertisers.

And it is something that business newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal international editions must watch closely – that as general interest newspapers and their web sites invest more and more in their business coverage and concentrate on such specific markets as India -- at what point does their coverage make the specialized coverage by financial media an unnecessary expense? 

The FT in its own domestic market is has seen strong circulation losses because papers like The Times and the Daily Telegraph have so improved their own business coverage.

It will be interesting to see how The Times does in attracting Indian readership. Certainly the large Indian population in the UK will welcome added coverage of their home country, but to get Indians in their own country to turn to The Times for their business news – now that’s the type of challenge that earns marketing bosses the big bucks!

ftm Follow Up & Comments

Former WSJE Editor Renews Ties In India with the WSJ - August 26, 2006

Raju Narisetti, who departed as the editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe in June to head up the editorial operation of a new Indian business newspaper, figures if you want good international business news coverage then look no further than his former employer.

HT Media Ltd. has announced an agreement under which the new Indian business paper -- so far, nameless -- will print Wall Street Journal-branded pages taken from the print and online editions as well as Marketwatch.com.

Gordon Crovitz, WSJ publisher, said, “India has emerged as a vibrant and expanding part of the global economy that we have sought better to serve with the right partner and we look forward to a role in helping those global connections between India and the rest of the business world.”

No word on how the deal might affect circulation of the Wall Street Journal Asia in India. HT Media executives said they are paying the WSJ for its content and there is no financial investment by Dow Jones, publisher of the WSJ, in HT Media. Indian law strictly enforces that no more than 26% of an Indian newspaper can be foreign-owned and HT Media currently has 23.63% foreign ownership.

Publication of the new business paper is planned by the end of the year, starting in New Delhi and Mumbai.

To Promote Its Web Site The UK’s Times Launches US Edition - May 29, 2006

In yet another move to make its web site better known and used outside the UK, The Times will start publishing June 6 in the US. It will be on sale at 2,000 outlets across New York and New Jersey and also by subscription.

It’s an expensive way to get one’s name better recognized in the US, but The Times does have the advantage of being printed and distributed by another News International newspaper, The New York Post, and no doubt there will be cost synergies.

Editor Robert Thomson said, “This is a key moment in the development of The Times as an international media brand. We have seen a large increase in our Times Online readership in the US and the appearance of the newspaper on the streets of New York marks the next stage in our print and web expansion.”

WSJE Editor Quits to Head New Indian Business Newspaper - April 18, 2006

Raju Narisetti, editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, is leaving his position at the end of May to head a new English language business daily newspaper and its web site in India.

The newspaper is to be launched by Hindustan Times Media Ltd.

Narisetti, a 13-year- veteran with the Wall Street Journal said, “I am very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of me at HT Media. India is at a tremendous inflexion point and this new venture will aim to meet the growing demand for accurate and insightful business journalism – both in terms of covering Indian business, as well as connecting the dots between India and the rest of the business world.”