Shalini Gupta (from Quantum Securities): “One last question. What is the problem that you are facing with respect to monetizing your readership online, because your readership in the newspapers, in the hard copies is well established, but what is getting in the way of you monetizing your readership online? Sandeep Jain (Chief Strategy Officer, HT Media): Let me ask you this way, do you Shalini pay for news online? Shalini Gupta: No, why would I pay for it? Sandeep Jain: That is where the answer lies. That is the difficulty, and it is a phenomenon which is not only prevalent in India, but worldwide. The opportunity to monetize readership on digital is so much more difficult. Shalini Gupta: So why not all of you get together and start charging for news online? Sandeep Jain: At some point in time that would be the intention, but you know that some of these things are not that easy. * HT Media is restructuring its business. For the quarter ended 30th September 2016 (Q2), and pre-demonetisation, some of the numbers: - Overall print ad revenue de-grew by 3.6% - English print business de-grew by 6% - Hindi business (its Hindi newspaper Hindustan) had a growth of 1%. Circulation revenues grew at 2.4% to 75.6 Cr, largely driven by improvement in realization rates, offsetting a small drop in number of copies. Overall, the company reported total revenues of Rs 602.33 crore, and a profit after tax of Rs 51.2 crore. Advertising in Print is down Print…
