The document summarizes the history and growth of the magazine sector in India from the 1980s onwards. It notes that the magazine boom in India was set off by the launch of magazines like India Today in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s, many new magazines launched covering diverse topics. The magazines introduced color printing and a more stylized reporting approach. The boom continued through the 1990s and 2000s, though some magazines closed. The magazine sector saw renewed growth in the mid-2000s with over 2,600 magazine titles registered. The document also provides an overview of some major media organizations in India.

1. The Magazine Sector

2. The Beginning
 The 1980’s saw a boom in the publication of
magazines in India, not only in English but in the
major Indian languages as well.
 The Magazine boom was perhaps set off by the
launch of India Today in the mid-seventies, and
the new look Illustrated Weekly of India under the
editorship of Khushwant Singh.

3.  They cover diverse topics such as politics, law,
society, women, the arts, travel, fashion, health,
sports, and economy.
 Broadly speaking, there are two types of
magazines: general interest magazines and
special-interest niche (SIN) magazines.
 Other magazines to be launched in quick
succession in the early eighties included
Gentleman, Gentleman Fashion Quarterly (GFQ),
Onlooker, The Week, G.

4.  . The new magazines introduced colour, gloss
and a snazzy style of reporting which
‘personalised’ and ‘dramatised’ issues and
events. Photographs, illustrations, charts and
graphs enlivened each page, and the focus was
on ‘soft’ features.
 High quality printing on imported glazed paper
lent the magazines an expensive look. This
pleased the advertising community immensely.

5.  The boom continued into the 1990s despite the
closure of long-established magazines like The
Illustrated Weekly of India, Sunday and Bombay.
 The growth was spectacular in the case of
special interest magazines, especially those
dealing with business and finance, computers
and electronics, fashion and lifestyles.

6.  The magazine boom almost went bust by the
close of the millennium, but by 2006 it was boom
time again for magazines.
 In 2006 as many as 2600 magazine titles were
registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for
India (RNI)
 At the Indian Magazine Congress in 2007, the
Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) claimed
that magazine advertising was growing faster
than newspapers and television - at 24% per
annum as against 18% for newspapers and
television.

7.  This was perhaps a consequence of the
Government’s policy of opening up the print media to
foreign investment. So while FDI in the news sector
was restricted to a 26% stake, the non-news sector
was permitted up to 100% FDI. In 2006-2007, the
Information and Broadcasting Ministry approved
licenses for over a hundred non-news international
titles.
 But Readership Surveys by NRS and IRS and
circulation audits by ABC seemed to suggest that
there was a decline in magazine reading

8.  News magazines were an
exception though. India Today (with
editions in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam
and Gujarati) was challenged by
Outlook and The Week, and later by
Hard News, Alive, Tehelka, and
Covert.

9. Growth
 Nearly four out of every five Indian periodicals are in
the Indian languages. Hindi alone has more than
3,000 periodicals, followed by English with over
2,670. Periodicals in Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati,
Bengali, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu too enjoy a fairly
good circulation and readership.
 Out of a total of 6,343 periodicals published regularly
(with a circulation of 91.3 million copies), 3,428 are
weeklies, 955 fortnightlies, 1,471 monthlies, 219
quarterlies and 49 annuals. The circulation of the
weeklies is 50.5 million copies while that of the
monthlies and fortnightlies is 21.1 million and 12.3
million respectively. The total readership of
magazines is 359 million, 68% of which is in Hindi.

10. Indian News Organisations

11. Some of the media Organisations are listed
below
 Press Information Bureau (PIB)
 Press Institute of India (PII)
 The Press Council of India (PCI)
 Audit Bureau of Circulation Ltd. (ABC)
 Registrar of Newspaper for India (RNI)
 Indian Newspaper Society (INS)
 United News of India (UNI) [ News Agency]
 Press Trust of India (PTI) [News Agency]
 Indo-Asian News Service (INAS) [News Agency]

12. Press Information Bureau (PIB)
 Press Information Bureau (known as PIB) is the nodal
agency of the Government of India. Press Information
Bureau disseminates information to the print,
electronic and new media on government plans,
policies, programme initiatives and achievements. PIB
is also the Government's nodal agency to facilitate
private media.
 Press Information Bureau was set up in 1919 as a
small Cell, the Press Information Bureau has now
grown into a nationwide network of eight Regional
Offices and 34 Branch Offices.

13. Press Institute of India (PII)
 Founded in 1963, the Press Institute of India, a first of its
kind in Asia, is an independent, non-profit trust, established
to create and sustain high and responsible standards of
journalism required by a developing country committed to
democratic functioning.
 PII's training workshops for journalists are conducted in-
house or in cities and rural areas of India. There is a strong
focus on rural reporting, development journalism and
writing on women's empowerment, the panchayat
movement, the fight against child labour, the fight for child
rights, etc.
 Over the years, PII has trained thousands of journalists

14. The Press Council of India (PCI)
 The Press Council of India is a statutory body in
India that governs the conduct of the print media.
It is one of the most important bodies that sustain
democracy, as it has supreme power in regards to
the media to ensure that freedom of speech is
maintained.
 However, it is also empowered to hold hearings
on receipt of complaints and take suitable action
where appropriate. It may either warn or censure
the errant journalists on finding them guilty.

15. The Press Council of India (PCI)
 The Press Council of India was first set up on 4
July 1966 by the Parliament on the
recommendations of the First Press Commission
with the object of preserving the freedom of the
Press and of maintaining and improving the
standards of press in India.
 The present Council functions under the Press
Council Act 1978. It is a statutory, quasi-judicial
body which acts as a watchdog of the press. It
adjudicates the complaints against and by the
press for violation of ethics and for violation of the
freedom of the press respectively.

16. Composition of PCI
 The Press Council is headed by a Chairman, who
has, by convention, been a retired judge of the
Supreme Court of India (except for the first
chairman, Justice J. R. Mudholkar, who was a
sitting judge of Supreme Court of India in 1968).
 The Council consists of 28 other members of
whom 20 represent the press and are nominated
by the press organisations/news agencies
recognised and notified by the Council as all India
bodies of categories such as editors, working
journalists and owners and managers of

17. Composition of PCI
 5 members are nominated from the two houses
of Parliament and 3 represent cultural, literary
and legal fields as nominees of the Sahitya
Academy, University Grants Commission (U.G.C.)
and the Bar Council of India.
 The members serve on the Council for a term of
three years. The present Chairman is Justice
Markandey Katju.

18. Complaints Procedure
 A complaint against a newspaper for any publication
the complainant finds objectionable and affecting him
personally, or for non-publication of any material,
should first be taken up with the editor or other
representative of the publication concerned.
 If the complaint is not resolved satisfactorily, it may be
referred the Press Council of India. The complaint
must be specific and in writing and should be
filed/lodged within two months of the publication of the
impugned news item in case of dailies and weeklies
and four months in all other cases, along with the
original/photostat copy of the impugned clipping (an
English translation if the matter is in a South Asian
language).

19. Complaints Procedure
 The complainant must state in what manner
the publication/non-publication of the matter is
objectionable within the meaning of the Press
Council Act, 1978, and enclose a copy of the
letter to the editor, pointing out why the matter
is considered objectionable.
 The editor's reply thereto or published
rejoinder, if any, may also be attached to it. A
declaration stating that the matter is not
pending in any court of law is also required to
be filed.

20. Audit Bureau of Circulation
 ABC (India) was founded in 1948, India .The
Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) of India is a
non-profit circulation-auditing organization. It
certifies and audits the circulations of major
publications, including newspapers and
magazines in India.
 “ABC” is a voluntary organization initiated in
1948 and is presently operating in different parts
of the world. Until that time, the concept of
circulation audit was yet to be made in India and
the publishers had no means to verify the actual
circulation number of publications that they used
for advertising and had to depend more on their

21. Audit Bureau of Circulation
 Publishers also found it difficult to convince
advertisers of the relative values of their
publication for the purpose of advertising.
 The benefit of ABC certificates of circulation have
been availed by advertisers, advertising
agencies, publishers and organizations
connected with print media advertising.

22. Criteria
 The Publisher should be a Member of Indian
Newspaper Society (INS) and the Publications
should be registered with Registrar of
Newspapers for India (RNI).
 Publisher members must maintain essential
books and records to facilitate a proper ABC audit
and also appoint an independent firm of
Chartered Accountants from amongst the
approved panel of auditors named by ABC.
Admission of publishers to ABC membership is
subject to a satisfactory admission audit. ABC
has a system of recheck audit and surprise check
audits of publications to be carried out as and

23. Registrar of Newspaper for India
(RNI)
 Registrar of Newspapers for India, more popularly
known as RNI, is a government office in India. It
came into being on 1 July 1956, on the
recommendation of the First Press Commission in
1953 and by amending the Press and
Registration of Books Act 1867.
 The Press and Registration of Books Act contains
the duties and functions of the RNI. On account
of some more responsibilities entrusted upon RNI
during all these years, the office is performing
both statutory as well as some non-statutory
functions.

24. Indian Newspaper Society
 The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) (formerly
Indian and Eastern Newspaper Society) acts as
the central organization of the Press of India, an
independent body authenticating circulation
figures of newspapers and periodicals in India.
 It is an organization which plays a major role in
protecting and promoting the freedom of press in
India. The society was founded in 1939. Its
headquarters are at Rafi Marg, New Delhi.

25. Indian Newspaper Society
 INS membership comprises the owners, proprietors
and publishers of print media who discusses and
suggest various measures to the government
regarding the problems related to the newspaper
industry. It is a kind of pressure group which works to
protect the interest of newspaper industry in particular
and print media in general.
 Indian newspaper industry today faces problems
ranging from rising cost and paucity of newsprint to
shrinking revenue from advertisement due to boom in
electronic media. The executive committee of INS
represents the current 990 members from
newspapers, journals, periodicals and magazines.

26. United News of India (UNI)
 United News of India (UNI) is one of the two primary
Indian news agencies. Established in 1961, it works in
collaboration with several foreign news agencies and
partners, including Reuters and DPA.
 UNI began its operations on March 21, 1961,though it
was registered as a company in 1959. Its head office
is located in New Delhi. It employs approximately 325
journalists around India and 250 "stringers" covering
news events in other parts of the world, with
correspondents in Washington, London, Dubai,
Islamabad, Dhaka, Colombo, Kathmandu, Singapore
and Sydney.
 UNI serves roughly 1000 subscribers globally. United
News of India is the first News Agency to place its
Stringer in remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

27. Press Trust of India (PTI)
 Press Trust of India (PTI) is the largest news
agency in India. It is headquartered in Delhi and
is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 450
Indian newspapers and has a staff of about 2,000
writers spread 150 offices nation wide.
 It took over the Indian operations of the
Associated Press and Reuters soon after India's
independence on August 15, 1947 . It provides
news coverage and information of the region in
both English and Hindi.

28. Press Trust of India (PTI)
 It exchanges information with several other news
agencies including 100 news agencies based
outside India, such as Associated Press, Agence
France-Presse, The New York Times and
Bloomberg L.P.. Major Indian subscribers of PTI
include The Hindu, Times of India, the Indian
Express, the Hindustan Times, the All India Radio
and Doordarshan.
 PTI has offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Colombo,
Dubai, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, New
York and Washington D.C

29. Indo-Asian News Service (INAS)
 Indo-Asian News Service or IANS is a private
Indian news agency.
 The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) was
established in 1986, initially to serve as an
information bridge between India and its thriving
diaspora in North America. Today it is a full-
fledged, 24 by 7 agencies putting out the real-
time news from India, South Asia and news of
interest to this region around the world.
 IANS is divided into six Strategic Business Units
(SBUs): IANS English, IANS Hindi, IANS
Publishing, IANS Business Consultancy, IANS
Solutions, and IANS Mobile.

30. Assignment
 Learn about 5 major International News Agencies
1. Agence France-Presse
2. Reuters
3. BBC
4. Associated Press
5. Bloomberg