The art of faking

"Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive,

but what they conceal is vital."

A few days ago, we discussed the concept of fudging circulation figures in the Chennai market. After having played the dirty game in Chennai and burnt their hands and pockets, DC bosses are limping back to Hyderabad. And to keep the morale of their troops high, DC bosses have some news to share. The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures July to December 06 are out and DC shows a figure of 3.85 lakhs for Hyderabad. That's almost a growth of one lakh copies for the last calendar year 2006. Is it too good to be true?

If the figures are any indication to go by the English readership in Hyderabad has grown by over 2 lakh copies. That's more than Bangalore city, the biggest English market down south. Media analysts say that the DC has grown by just about 38,000 copies in the last calendar year. The rest is just straight forward dumping.

In the print industry, a hike in advertising tariff follows increase in circulation. That is because someone has to bear the cost of printing more number of copies. It costs about 5 rupees to produce a 24-page newspaper, with a mix of 16 black & white and eight colour pages. Which means in the last one year, DC has been spending about 5 lakh rupees more every day to print a 24 page across the state. That is 150 lakh rupees extra every month. That translates into about Rs.18 crores in the last one-year. DC bosses while publishing their annual financial results have hidden that amount from their auditors.

DC is in a Catch 22 situation, and has not been able to pass on the cost of increase to its advertisers, who might defect to Hindu or Times. Going by logic DC should have upped their ad rates by about 30% to take care of the higher input costs. Not doing that makes everyone in the media industry apprehensive. Dal mein kuch kaala hai!

This is exactly what happened to Hindustan Times in their circulation war with Times of India in Delhi. After a five-year bloody battle, both Hindustan Times and The Times of India were almost neck and neck in the Delhi market. Times lost money, but HT lost a lot more. Times survived because of their deep pockets but HT did not have any such luck. Even the backing of the Birla group did not help, and HT called for a truce.

Now, HT and Times have come together in a 50:50 joint venture to produce an afternoon newspaper titled Metro in Delhi. This move was unthinkable a few years ago, and it shows that as in politics there are no permanent enemies or friends in media business. This move is aimed at thwarting the plans of the India Today group, which is planning to start a daily in Delhi titled Today. Incidentally, the editor of the new daily of India Today is Kingshuk Mukherji, the ex editor of Times, Hyderabad. Sourish Bhattacharya who handled HT city is now the Executive Editor of Today.

Today, HT does not want to grow from where it stands now. The inference is obvious, as more circulation will mean higher printing costs. If one goes by that logic, DC should have stalled their growth in Hyderabad at around 3 lakh copies. But DC bosses seem to be going against industry norms. Analysts see only one reason why the Reddy brothers are doing this. Being a listed company, they have to show stupendous growth year on year. Or else, there will be a bloodbath in the stock market.

It seems, DC bosses are going for the broke. As they say, finally when the shit hits the fan, there will be nobody around to take it.