“The model in India is to charge a low subscription cost and to tie up with advertisers for good consumer promotions, plus to offer huge incentives to the trade,” said Lynn D’Souza, director of Lintas Media Group.

Research has shown free dailies generally succeed in countries where a daily paper costs about the same as a can of soda. Combine that with the fact that most Indian media experts are skeptical of free dailies and their editorial content — judging the quality unacceptable to both Indian readers and advertisers  — and it makes sense why the model doesn’t have a foothold in India.

Bhaskar Das, executive president of the daily Times of India, said one of the main problems with free papers in India is the value of the “raddi” (scrap) market, which makes places like railway stations or bus terminals ineffective distribution sites. At the same time, it would be financially impossible to deliver free dailies directly to readers’ homes.

“This in turn makes it difficult to identify the readers of a free daily, which will again create the wrong illusion for advertisers,” Das, who publishes Mumbai Mirror as a free complement to TOI, told agencyfaqs!. “That’s why such a business model has a huge logistical problem in India.”

But such a model isn’t out of the question. As the pull of new media draws readers away from traditional publications and as India’s retail market grows — with shopping malls providing new outlets for paper distribution — free dailies will be able to find an opening in today’s seemingly impenetrable market.

Source: agencyfaqs!