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Malayalam dailies engaged in ad war

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The two main Malayalam dailies in Kerala are engaged in a war of words claiming supremacy in readership. In a seemingly endless campaign to woo more readers and advertisers, they are trying to belittle each other, much to the amusement of the reading public. It all started with the Malayala Manorama, the oldest Malayalam daily after Deepika, launching an ad blitz claiming supremacy in the state's vernacular newspaper circulation.

After a long silence, the Mathrubhumi, the second largest circulated Malayalam daily after the Manorama, has hit back -- by publishing a big ad with a picture showing a raddiwallah weighing a huge heap of the same day's Manorama. Captioned "Today's newspaper sold as waste paper?" The copy continued: ''selling undistributed copies of today's newspaper is for some a means of establishing circulation. But never at the Mathrubhumi."

The ad discloses, that the Mathrubhumi has a "natural circulation" of 7,17,666 copies, and ends with asking, "Think. Are you paying more for advertising in unseen, unread, undistributed copies?" The ad appeared in mass-circulated English publications like the Hindu and Outlook .

The latest and the sixth edition of the Mathrubhumi is from Kottayam, where the Manorama headquarters is based. Its other editions are from Kozhikode, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kannur. The Deshabhimani, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, commented on the ad with a story entitled "Newspaper bundles sold off to claim No.1 position in circulation." It also reproduced the Mathrubhumi ad.

The Deshabhimani noted that Manorama had provoked the Mathrubhumi by stating in its own ads that the No 2 paper in Malayalam was lagging far behind the No 1. The Deshabhimani added: "The advertisement exposes well the Manorama's gimmicks to hoodwink the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The advertisement describes the clandestine work of printing papers far in excess of the real subscribers and selling them off as waste paper.''

The Madhyamam, the youngest among the popular Malayalam dailies, too reproduced the picture of the Mathrubhumi ad. The daily reported that, "this inner secret had been brought out by the second largest circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi. The ad that unveils the circulation secrets of the No 1 Malayalam paper falls short of actually naming the paper concerned. It is clear who is the target."

Noted cultural figure Sukumar Azhikode says that it is not the number of sold copies that is important. "Newspaper managements should ponder over whether their newspaper's views find a place in the country's crucial think-tank. Even if a paper is read by 700,000 people what is the use if at least half of them refuse to believe what they read. Those who think that circulation is the yardstick of a newspaper's success should do some soul-searching," he said.

The Kerala Kaumudi, meanwhile, has come out with a half-a-page ad showing a kangaroo and its cub. The punchline says, "This is not a kangaroo! Because 920,00 million people say so. But we say it is nothing but a kangaroo. And that is the truth." According to the Manorama, its readership is 920,00 million, the figure referred to in the ad.

According to official figures, the Manorama is the first Indian language newspaper to hover near the million-mark in circulation. Though it comes next to the English daily The Times Of India with 10,13, 590 copies, the Malayalam paper considers its feat more creditworthy. "We crossed the landmark without gimmicks like price cuts. All our editions are from Kerala, while The Times of India is published from six states," said a senior circulation official in Manorama.

Of late, the circulation of the daily, which started with around 500 copies toward the end of the last century, has been registering a phenomenal growth. In 1997, the paper's circulation shot up by 129,000 copies and, within the first six months of last year, it rose by 55,000 copies.

Until the mid-1950s the paper was doing quite badly, with a circulation of only 30,000 copies. The major turnaround came after the current chief editor K M Mathew, 82, took charge in 1954.

Founded by Kandathil Mammen Mappilai, the Manorama and its sister publications are run by his descendants.

Though the electronic media is catching up at a frenetic phase in Kerala, the magic of the printed word still charms the literate Malayali.

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