A capital skirmish

Yet another battle has erupted between ?The Times of India

The two have been slugging it out for years, each claiming that it's top dog in the capital.

Last fortnight, New Delhi saw a fresh round of newspaper skirmishing. Those two publishing industry warhorses, "The Hindustan Times" (HT) and "The Times of India" (ToI), claimed once again that they were the most widely read dailies in the city.

"The Times of India" cheerfully tom-tommed the findings of the latest National Readership Survey (NRS) that put it ahead of rival "The Hindustan Times" by about 7 to 8 per cent in terms of total city readership. "The Hindustan Times" riposted by brandishing Audit Bureau of Circulation figures on the number of copies sold, to prove it's leadership in Delhi.

The war of words was cut short by a Delhi High Court order that asked the National Readership Studies Council to restrain its clients from using the survey's findings till further notice.

So how then has "The Times of India" at least been publishing what it claims are the findings? Pose that question to an NRS Council official and he'll tell you: "That's their problem, not ours."

Yet the brief slanging match reminded the city's newspaper readers of a similar battle waged on the front pages of the two dailies barely a year back when the Indian Readership Survey gave TOI an edge over HT in Delhi.

It is not difficult to see why being number one in Delhi is a matter of life and death for the papers. Massive advertising revenue is at stake "� close to Rs 918 crore per annum for the English language dailies.

Indeed, the share of press advertising in Delhi is bigger than that in the Mumbai market (Rs 892 crore a year).

"So it's not a clash of egos but a hard-core business battle," notes Rahul Kansal, director, ToI brand, at Bennett, Coleman & Co, explaining why the two papers devoted valuable column centimetre space to claiming leadership.

"The Hindustan Times" vice president (marketing) Anand Bhardwaj refused to comment on the subject, claiming that the Delhi High Court had restrained NRS findings from being used.

One reason Delhi's print advertising is burgeoning is that Mumbai's fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) advertisers are primarily television driven.

"On the other hand, Delhi's advertisers comprise the automobile and consumer durables companies based here who use the print medium in a big way," says Kansal.

Besides, he feels that in the media business the scales tip eminently in favour of the winner. "Advertisers have a tendency to go for the market leader. In media, the winner takes all," he adds.

If the NRS findings are released, ToI will laugh all the way to the bank.

"Advertisers who want to address the Delhi market with budgets only for one newspaper will automatically opt for ToI, an advantage HT enjoyed all these years," observes an executive at Mediacom, the agency that handled the HT account till last month.

Currently HT commands a higher advertising rate in Delhi than ToI. However, media planners say that ToI has already informed the agencies of a rate hike "� from Rs 830 per sq cm to Rs 865 for similar space "� in January.

Media industry veterans point out that ToI may finally turn around in Delhi after making huge losses for many years. Predictably, ToI executives refused to divulge profit and loss figures for the Delhi edition.

But insiders say that for the last few years ToI has been losing almost Rs 30 crore a year in Delhi. Among its major costs is its massive promotional budget.

Though Kansal insists that ToI spends "peanuts" to promote the brand, a company insider says that its annual promotion budget is upwards of Rs 20 crore.

To be sure, Kansal, who joined ToI over a year back, has spearheaded several aggressive marketing exercises to popularise the brand.

Besides the Delhi Tambola promotion, he launched the combo offer where Bennett, Coleman's ToI and "Navbharat Times" were distributed as a package.

Says the Mediacom executive: "ToI is present everywhere, from kiosks to hoardings to ground activities, unlike HT which did not have a large promotion budget."

Clearly, if the new NRS figures are accepted, HT will be affected. For starters, the paper will take a hit in its biggest and most profitable market, unlike TOI which mints money in Mumbai.

"The paper's yield will be under tremendous pressure. It's not that all advertising will evaporate, but if it is no longer the market leader it will be susceptible to discounts," says a former HT executive who's now marketing head at a publishing house.

A clearer picture of whether HT has indeed lost out in the Delhi market will emerge after the court battle over NRS is over.

A small advertising agency Mapsor filed a case in a Jaipur court in November against the NRS results being released. So the results had to be withheld.

Though a Delhi High Court order directed NRS to issue the results, a division bench of the Delhi High Court again ordered the NRS Council to restrain its subscribers from using the survey's findings till further orders.

While the survey may be mired in controversy, Kansal says that in the last round NRS used the 2001 census as its research base as opposed to the 1991 census it used for the last round.

"Since the 1991 census was old, several new areas of Delhi were not adequately represented. The survey based on the 2001 census would obviously better reflect the Delhi scene," he says.

In fact a marketing expert points out that the NRS has lowered the age bar for adults "� from 15 to 12 year olds "� in the latest round. "That may have given an edge to ToI as it bonds better with the youth segment," says a senior media planner.

Yet critics argue that ToI's position appears better in the NRS as the paper becomes aggressive through free sampling and ground activities when the survey's field work is on.

Kansal, however, says that it is no longer possible to be clever about these things and do activities around the survey as it is an ongoing exercise.

But if the NRS is accepted, will HT still go to Mumbai to take on ToI as it has been planning to do or will it divert its energies to fire-fighting in Delhi? Watch this space, for an answer.