MAM
Print media to get back on its feet sooner than expected
NEW DELHI: While print media lost around 80 per cent of its advertising revenue during the Covid2019 period, it made for the lost monies by reducing the number of pages in its supplements, thus minimizing the bad impact on business, shared Dainik Bhaskar Group promoter director Girish Agarwal in a live discussion with Motivator managing partner Radhika Ramani organised by The Advertising Club Bangalore. The discussion titled Reimagining Print with Siva & Girish, also saw the presence of BCCL chairman executive committee, Sivakumar Sundaram.
Agarwal highlighted, “Advertising used to amount to about 75 per cent of our earnings, which went down to 12-13 per cent during the Covid2019 period. Now, we used to subsidise our cost for our readers by Rs 2-3, and by reducing the number of pages, we have made that subsidy almost zero without increasing the cost for subscribers. Now, the advertising revenue stood very low relatively and that helped us.”
Both Agarwal and Sundaram showed great positivity towards the future of print as a medium to disseminate news and advertising in the coming future. Agarwal dismissed all the rumours of print publications shutting shops by saying, “The circulation which went down to almost 60-65 per cent of the regular in the month of March, touched 70-75 per cent in April. If we look at the shift in the following months, till the first week of July, most of the Indian language publications have already crossed the mark of 80 per cent.”
He added that the rest 20 per cent circulation is at places like railway stations and offices, which will commence by the month of August and soon the circulation will reach the 100 per cent mark. Agarwal also insisted that advertisers should be active on print now, as those who won’t take the opportunity will anyway lose sales in the coming weeks.
He said, “Most of the advertisers have started advertising already with us. The local advertisers are very much active and the big brands are coming up too. And those who are not advertising will surely lose out on sales and business.”
Sundaram highlighted that brands should be leveraging newspapers for hyperlocal reach and should be working on more regional content to benefit out of it. He highlighted that most of the national level brands see India as a homogeneous cluster, or divided into north and south India, which needs to be changed.
MAM
Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
