The Times of India (circulation: 3.1m) has an intriguing business model. It’s profitable, very profitable. Turnover last year was £500m; profits were £120m.
The striking thing is how much of that revenue is attributable to ads. According to the paper’s national features editor Manu Joseph, The Times “spends about 25p to produce a copy of the newspaper and recovers less than 5p from the reader”.
Accordingly, The Times of India has some intriguing ways of boosting ad revenues. One ruse, it seems, is selling editorial space to aspiring socialites and celebrities in a supplement.
Why write up the witterings of celebrity PRs when you could just sell them some ad space instead?
Hey ho. Perhaps Martin Banks can add this to his list of suggestions for saving The People. . .
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