Time to set foot on road to recovery

It’s obvious that the current economic catastrophe has a profound negative impact on the news media industry. The devastation has been particularly painful for the printed editions of every newspaper, either in big cities or small towns. However, many newspaper groups over the last few months have come up with proactive approach to dealing with the crisis and looking ahead to set foot on the road to recovery. Some language newspapers, particularly Hindi dailies, have done well in unlocking themselves from the pandemic economic pain.

What’s more, many newspaper groups who come up with innovative ideas and unique approach in a thoughtful and meaningful manner eventually catch the eyeballs of readers and mindset of advertisers. By nature, printed newspapers are quite a prolific platform to provide needed assistance to companies or brands or business owners who have been hard-hit by the economic catastrophe. To be certain, many newspaper groups have done quite a good job, but there is more that they can do on the road to recovery.

The challenges confronting the industry for the printed newspapers have been significant, given the fact that advertisers are not in investment mood and many market segments still remain closed. In such situation, the hindrance to the circulation of newspaper copies has apparently made print editions more vulnerable to the COVID-19 impact than other domains. The need of the hour for the printed newspaper groups is to embark upon new ideas, because conventional approach or mere thinking will no longer be leading them to innovation, creativity and productivity.

Every newspaper house must realise the fact that there is nothing that gets out of thinking conventional now than an existential crisis. From now on, everybody needs to abandon traditional thoughts and ideas which simply lead to mere improvement. It’s time for everyone to adjust mindset around new business planning, outside the traditional scope, paving a new pathway to revival. It’s time to modify procedures to make products and services accessible to readers and advertisers, ensuring their core satisfaction and requirement.

We know that the pandemic has slammed all major trade exhibitions and business events in the industry and everything now goes online, in form of webinars or online conferences. In this respect, some virtual events nowadays are quite fruitful to gain thoughts and ideas for business transformation, structural changes in revenue pattern, etc. We need to attend such events to uplift our spirit and business to where it was.

Though the pandemic has challenged every notion of what we expect from business and lives, we should never retreat or surrender. We should overcome!

SM Dutt
info@smediagroup.in