New Print Media Advertisement Policy

The Union Information and Broadcasting ministry has framed a New Print Media Advertisement Policy for Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP). The objective of the policy is to promote transparency and accountability in issuing of advertisements in print media.

Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) is the nodal agency of the Union Government for advertising on behalf of various Ministries and Departments which are funded by the government.

Key Highlights

With a view to bring transparency and accountability in the release of government ads the government will ascertain the circulation figures of newspapers and periodicals with Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) or Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) before publishing government’s official advertisements in them. ABC is a not for profit body which measures and audits newspaper and magazine circulation throughout the country.

It is stated that in order to get empanelled by the DAVP, the newspapers with a circulation of over 45,000 copies per publishing day must be certified by the ABC or RNI. If a newspaper has multiple editions then each edition will be treated separately while verifying the circulation of a newspaper for empanelment.

The new policy allows the PSUs and the autonomous bodies to directly publish advertisements in the empanelled newspapers at rates fixed by the DAVP.

Apart from the newspaper circulation figures, DAVP will also take into account the marks obtained by the newspapers as per the introduced new marking system. For the first time a New Marking System has been introduced for newspapers with an aim to incentivize Newspapers. The new marking system is based upon 6 objective criterions with marks allocated to them:

• Circulation certified by ABC/RNI (25 marks)
• EPF subscription for employees (20 marks)
• number of pages (20 marks)
• subscription to wire services of United News of India (UNI)/Press Trust of India (PTI)/Hindustan Samachar (15 marks)
• own printing press (10 marks)
• annual subscription payment to Press Council of India (PCI) (10 marks).

The structure of payment for the advertisements released by the DAVP will be ascertained by a rate structure committee.

The new policy also has relaxed empanelment procedures for regional language/dialects small and medium newspapers; newspapers in north eastern states, Jammu and Kashmir and Andaman and Nicobar Islands to provide special encouragement.

The new policy also aims to promote equity based regional outreach by dividing the budget for the release of advertisements across the country among states based on the total circulation of newspapers in each state and language.

The policy has also classified newspaper and journals into three categories namely:

• small: publishing upto 25,000 copies per day,
• medium: between 25,001 and 75,000 copies and
• Big: 75,000 copies or more.

Questions & Answers

• What is the expenditure of the central government over advertisements annually?
• Why the government has come up with a new policy?
• What is the Way forward?

What is the expenditure of the central government over advertisements annually?

According to data from DAVP, for the year 2015-16, the union government has spent Rs.842.89 crore on publicity. Out of it, Rs.402.79 crore was spent on print media advertisements and Rs.353.31 crore on electronic media advertisements.

Why the government has come up with a new policy?

Since the government spends a huge sum of around Rs. 400 crore annually on advertisements in print media, it wants to bring more transparency and accountability so as to fix the allegations of irregularities in the past.

What is the Way forward?

Experts in the field have welcomed the government’s move to come up with a new policy which aims to usher in more transparency as compared to the past. At the same time, they have also cautioned that the effectiveness of the new policy rests completely on the successful implementation by the DAVP.