The English-language newspaper market ensures that the
readership is carved equally among both the players.
Just 2000 copies separate the number one daily oHeraldo
and the runner-up Navhind Times as per the latest Audit
Bureau of Circulation survey. But with neither of them
aiming to break out for total dominance there is little
investment either in editorial or in printing technologies.
Though tourism is major contributor to Goa's revenues,
the newspapers offer little to a visitor. The colour
and vitality of the tiny state simply does not reflect
in its English-language newspapers. Though it is the
beach belt that draws all the tourists, there is very
little coverage from these areas in the local
newspapers. As one senior journalist remarked to me,
Goa moves simultaneously on two parallel lines. And the
beach belt is a whole world away from the hinterland
that provides all of Goa's journalists. So the hotels
and the party scene appear rarely on their radar, and
that too only when disgruntled politicians in the area
rake up environmental or other issues.
There is a thriving party scene on the beach belt that
could have been happening on some other planet going
strictly by the newspapers in Goa. Purely as a
marketing play, newspapers here should be allocating
resources to ensure adequate coverage of the tourism
sector. There are any number of marketers eager to tap
the floating tourist population and the newspapers here
missing out on big opportunities.
But then even the coverage of day to day issues in
Goa's English-language newspapers leaves much to be
desired. During the two years I spent in Goa, I can
remember barely three or four memorable stories from
the state's three English-language newspapers. The
regional language newspapers, on the other hand, have
stolen a march over their English-language counterparts
as publications of record. A comprehensive coverage of
Goa, aided by a network of stringers spread all over
the state, ensured that the Marathi Tarun Bharat was a
newspaper of choice for anyone looking for a bird's
eye-view of Goa every morning.
Tarun Bharat's strategy to topple existing market
leader Gomantak by investing in people and technology
makes an interesting case study in the newspaper
business. With very little marketing muscle on the
lines of the Times group or Dainik Bhaskar to speak of,
the newspaper simply worked at reporting from the
grassroots to capture a leadership position in the
market. That Tarun Bharat has still not found favour
among Goa's Marathi-speaking intelligentsia is another story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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