Mixed Reactions To Print Media Advertisement Policy 2020

The Print Media Advertisement Policy 2020, effective from August 1, is all set to overhaul Government ads in the print media in terms of giving them coverage. It also aims at a balanced distribution of advertisements in print and benefit Indian language publications.

The highlights of the draft policy are:

1. The ad distribution that was earlier in rupee terms will now be in terms of space
2. Space allocation for government ads has been increased from 50% to 80% for vernacular dailies.
3. Maintaining a balance between various categories of newspapers taking into account factors like circulation, language, coverage area and target readership while releasing display advertisements.
4. The distribution of advertisements, among small, medium and big newspapers will be in terms of space (in sqcm). While the ceiling for small newspapers will be at 15%, it will be 35% for medium and 50% for the big ones.
5. The distribution of government advertisements among newspapers of various languages (in terms of space) will be 20% for English and 80% for Indian languages.
6. The circulation criteria for authentication from ABC/RNI/PIB has been reduced from 45,000 copies to 25,000.

The new policy has not gone down well with all newspapers. “Indian Newspaper Society (INS) will take up with the ministry as we have found a lot of anomalies. There should be a dialogue with the industry before laying down guidelines that affect the business,” Varghese Chandy, VP, Marketing, Advertising Sales, Malayala Manorama was quoted as saying by exchange4media.