Senior journalist and Rajya Sabha member Harivansh on Friday brought the attention of the Government to the financial problems faced by the print media industry. Several members in the Upper House supported Harivansh, who called upon the Government to review the advertisement rates continuing since 2010.
Harivansh said the industry was facing financial constraints due to the emergence of social media, wage board recommendations, cost of newsprint, rising prices of other inputs and impact of demonetisation.
“The print media is in trouble mainly due to two reasons.
First is the changing times, meaning emergence of new forms of media, like social media, TV, internet, Facebook and FM radio. The other is systemic where government can take initiative to correct the situation,” said the JD(U) member.
He said the burden of Wage Board recommendations has also impacted the industry along with tax rates proposed in the GST, continuous rise in cost of newsprint and increasing price of other inputs.
“Newspaper industry is saying that demonetisation has affected their advertisement (business). I urge the Government to immediately take initiatives in this regard, because it would become difficult once the situation slips out of hand,” Harivansh added.
Noting that the Government has promised two crore jobs annually, the member said but new jobs are not being created. “Retrenchment is taking place in print media. Editions are being closed down,” he said and added that the small and medium newspapers have been affected the most.
Harivansh said newspapers were dependent on advertisements and the growth in advertisement revenue is static at 4-6 per cent for last many years.
Citing example of a leading newspaper, he said post implementation of wage board recommendations, its pre-tax loss (2013/14 - 2014/15) increased significantly. Also, staff cost of Press Trust of India increased by 174 per cent in 2013-14.