PTI invigorating the
newspaper industry with stellar role
“Being part and parcel of newspapers in free India, we wish the industry to grow up constantly as we too have evolved with them,” says Maharaj Krishan Razdan who heads the day-to-day administration and management of PTI as the chief executive officer, along with shouldering responsibilities of
editor-in-chief of the agency, in
tête-à-tête with All About Newspapers editors SK Khurana and Ajeet Singh.
I
ncorporated at Chennai (then Madras) on August 27, 1947 with the objective of supplying ‘economic, efficient, comprehensive, unbiased and reliable news service to all subscribers wherever situated, without discrimination’ and beginning functioning as an independent national news agency in February, 1949 after taking over the control of the Associated Press of India from its British management, the Press Trust of India (PTI) has completed six decade of prestige in news dissemination. Run by a board of directors with the chairmanship going by rotation annually, this premier news agency of India has been playing a stellar role, invigorating the ewspaper industry.
“Most of the news agencies across the world are state-owned. But like the US-based Associated Press (AP), PTI, with 95 stake holders, is a typical example of those agencies whose owners are newspapers themselves. Being neutral in operational approach and ensuring higher quality, credibility and objectivity to our news services, we have been getting good support from all targeted individuals and establishments including governmental and non-governmental organisations in a big ways,” stated Razdan. Presently, with the strength of over four hundred permanent journalists and five hundred stringers, who collectively put out over two thousand stories and about two hundred photographs per day covering almost every district and town in India, for satiating the need of the diverse subscribers, PTI has a vast reach in the country and is constantly increasing its streams across the world.
“Being associated with PTI since last forty years, I have seen tremendous technological and operational changes in the news publishing industry and in our organisation as well. The approach of readers is being influenced with generation change in the society. Facilitating the process of news coverage, the technological advancements have effectively been enabling the content providers to offer what readers generally like to read. As our subscribers required more news stories related to Hollywood and Bollywood, and sports, etc; and accordingly, we had to expand our offerings in these segments. Similarly, the liberalization of Indian economy in 1990s and subsequent fast economic development in the country generated the increase in demand for economic and business news. Resultantly, even in New Delhi, PTI had to deploy 55 journalists for committedly covering business and corporate news, who are currently feeding around 200 news stories every day,” said Razdan elaborating the changing scenario during his association with PTI.
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In the same way, globalization has created much interest in global news. So, PTI have to expand their global footprint. Resultantly, while earlier PTI had only half a dozen correspondents overseas, now they have placed twenty correspondents in leading capitals and important business and administrative centres across the world, apart from having exchange arrangements with several foreign news agencies. They are collaborating with 50-60 news agencies, but maximum content shoring goes with the US-based Associated Press. However, in the overall exchange arrangement, PTI shells out more money as the international news requirements always remain high by their subscribers.
Talking about subscription fee structure, Razdan mentioned, “We have very liberal fee structure for all subscribers ranging from ten thousand to twenty lakh rupees per month. For subscribers from newspaper segment, our fee is based on circulations, and with the increase in circulation of the subscriber, fee rises accordingly. Presently, most of our business comes from newspapers, as amid mainstream media, specialized presses, research groups, corporates, and government as well as non-governmental organisations, we have the highest number of subscribers from newspaper segment.”
“We also have around twenty overseas subscribers including BBC, and the number is to go up in the coming years as the whole world wants to know much more and instantly about us,” he added.
“To further consolidate our strengths in the market, our next step would be to come up with video news for TV channels who, so far, are served with same service as newspapers,” divulged Razdan showing happiness with overall response from the market. Presently, PTI is offering economic service, feature service, science service, StockScan, apart from general social and political news stories, and recently introduced infographics service. They have also initiated internet delivery of news and photo services with photo-dial up facility. “Lunched in 1986, our Hindi service ‘Bhasha’ is also performing well.”
On asking whether they are planning to offer their services in vernacular languages in India, Razdan replied, “India is country in which 22 languages are constitutionally recognized and it’s not feasible for us to provide news services in more vernacular languages requiring huge resources for translation, so we leave it to newspapers. Besides, Hindi, almost all vernacular newspapers subscribe our English service, and translate the news stories as per their individual requirements.”
“As the technology has been reducing the communication gap, we are cutting down the number of offices. Despite, we have state-of-the-art offices in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhopal and Jaipur apart from the headquarters in New Delhi. Also, over the years, we have established our office in London, while having residence cum offices for all our overseas correspondents,” he informed on asking about physical presence of PTI overseas.
Speaking on the recent initiatives being taken by overseas news agencies, Razdan did mention that limited scope left for them in their own respective countries, makes them come to developing countries like India and look for available opportunities. Towards this, they have started participating in all major trade shows happening in India.
“But we effectively dominate Indian market, marking around 97 percent news agency market share in the country. And so, unlike others, we do not need to promote our services which have already been well-received by our valued subscribers,” concluded Razdan.
