The state of Goa's magazine market: Impressive or depressing? ------------------------------------------------------------- A former Portuguese colony, busy tourist destination and India's smallest state, Goa has a lively and growing magazine scenario. From a rare, unsustainable magazine or two not very long ago, the region on the west coast of India now has a diversity of niche magazines. However, in spite of the recent growth, questions and concerns continue to be raised. -------------------------------------------------------------
PHOTO: Different niche magazines published in Goa When Goa's transformation began in the 1960s, from being a sleepy outmigration-prone region to witnessing fast growth, the former colony of Lisbon for 451 years had little happening on the periodical front. Not surprising, for Goa's economy then was sluggish and the region had just emerged after decades of media censorship. Although spells of Portuguese rule were liberal (Goa even had its own members of parliament in the 19th century), for a large part of the 20th century, the strict dictatorship of Antonio Oliveira Salazar imposed censorship in the Portuguese empire, including Goa. Today, magazines have sprouted like mushrooms in a torrential Goan monsoon. Although still a long distance away from competing with the nearby Indian commercial capital of Mumbai, it's already clear that vendors are finding it tough to display all the mastheads on their racks, outlets and display spaces. A visit to Goa's plush new, Rs 36-crore Krishnadas Shama Central Library Complex at Pato Plaza in the state-capital Panjim, shows over a hundred magazines (plus many newspapers too) awaiting readers in its first-floor reading section open to all -- without membership requirements or charge. Of course, many of these magazines are sourced from across the country; readership interest is strong here for material coming in from outside Goa, specially in languages like English and Marathi. Smaller diaspora communities from other states (and even abroad) settled here or visiting as tourists, also bring their reading preferences to Goa. For instance, the magazine *Goa Streets* recently converted between one-quarter to a third of its pages into Russian! Russians are the largest single group of foreign tourists (of whom almost half a million visit Goa each year). But the numbers in Goa are clearly growing. Take a look at the diversity. *Goa Today* is the grand-daddy of all monthly magazines in Goa, and an English language publication that has been around from the 1960s. It was started by ex-editor Lambert Mascarenhas (who, incidentally, completed his 99th birthday last year) and was bought by the mining house of the Salgaocars in the 1980s. Lawyer-artist turned publisher Harshvardhan Bhatkuly says growing up next door to a journalist made him want to be a journalist. In the last four years he has started three magazines -- *Business Goa*, a monthly glossy dedicated to commerce and the entrepreneurial class of Goa, is his flagship. *My Goa*, a general purpose magazine describes itself as "Goa's only social magazine embodying the true essence of Goa -- her people, culture, traditions, folklore, politics, celebrations and issues." To complete the trio, Bhatkuly launched a Marathi monthly too. Other players in the general magazine space include *Viva Goa*, a monthly glossy run by Kedar Dhume, whose background in commercial advertising obviously gives the publication a head start, at least in financial terms. *Planet-Goa* is a tourist-focused magazine promising to let you "discover (a world of) entertainment, wine, dine, shopping, real estate, adventure" and is now in its fourth year of publication. It is published by Gautam Mukerjea, formerly of the Indian Express, whose brother Peter Mukerjea made news nationally in the TV space. Then there are others too. From the village of Parra, near the town of Mapusa in North Goa, comes *Homes & Estates*, a property and building trade guide published quarterly, and the monthly *FindAll Goa*, an officially-sponsored Goa tourism guide to events and entertainment in the state of 1.5 million which draws an estimated 2 million tourists each year. *Goenkar* (Konkani for 'The Goan') claims to be Goa’s "largest circulated socio-economic, business, lifestyle magazine," and is part of the 1998-launched Hello Group. Till it became an all-color monthly with a cover price of Rs 60 in 2013, it catered to regional intra-Goa urban business markets, with its *Hello* roughly A5-sized free magazines offering advertising and coverage to local businesses of the area. *Evescape* is Goa's "first woman's magazine", now in its second volume describes itself as a read "for the woman in command of change." Meanwhile, *Mind & Body, Heart & Soul* promises to "heal from the inside out" published by the *Goan Observer* group founded by editor Rajan Narayan, known for his prominent role at the *Herald* daily between 1983 and 2003. His wife Tara (Patel) Narayan is the editor. There are others too such as the Roman-script Konkani *Gulab* and *The Goan Review*, a bilingual magazine in English and Konkani run by Fausto V Da Costa, from offices in Mumbai and Margao in South Goa. These publications grew out of the untypical entrepreneurship of the Catholic-priest publisher and cultural promoter Fr Freddy J. Da Costa, who unfortunately passed away in a road accident. In recent times, *The Goan Review* has repeatedly announced that it is in danger of shutting down. *Renewal* (also known as *Novsornni* in Konkani and *Renovacao* under its old Portuguese name) is a fortnightly bulletin of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. *Dor Mhoineachi Rotti* (The Monthly Bread, in Konkani) is another religious magazine, edited and published by local Jesuits. Interestingly, it will complete a century of publication next year and was for a while also published in Konkani using the Roman script for expatriate Goans in Karachi. There are smaller magazines like *Atharva*, which describes itself as a "monthly of contemporary studies and analysis" and has a conservative right-wing bias, and other occasional Konkani magazines such as *Konkonn Divo* (The Lamp of the Konkan), and *Paklleo*, among others. So, can one conclude that the magazine scene is booming? Gautam Mukerjea of *Planet-Goa* told *Indian Printer and Publisher*: "Given the size of the Goa market, both in terms of readers as well as advertisers, the two main components for attaining economic viability, the magazine category itself seems to have reached optimum levels. This is apparent from observing how the category has grown over the past few years as also the shake-outs which have happened." Mukerjea suggests, "With print itself being a dying medium worldwide with the advent of the internet," in a place like India where literacy levels are on the rise, the medium is so far not endangered. "However, it is important for magazine publishers to be looking at growing markets and tapping into different spaces, which may be niche, but are focused. That to me is pretty much the way to adjust to the peculiarities that a market like Goa faces," he adds. Harshvardhan Bhatkuly told this correspondent bluntly, "The magazine scene couldn't be better in Goa from the reader's point of view. As an avid local-magazinephile, if I were hunting for Goa-based magazines, boy wouldn't I be spoilt for choice? From business to news and ladies-only to travel, not to mention the much touted L word (lifestyle) we have it all. Conveying varied content on the goings-on in the state, an optimist would call this a robust state of affairs for the magazine industry. What is even better is the talk of new magazines awaiting launch and still older ones being revived. And mind you, this in times of an apparent recession and crunch on advertising expenditure. "I believe that the business of magazines is more a leap of faith for many in the trade, rather than well thought out business decisions. And most people with whom I speak to in the business grudgingly admit that it's a struggle from issue to issue. There is no auto-pilot situations here. The promoter of the magazine has to make it work. There is simply no alternative. The lack of corporatization in this field -- and I believe Goa is not ready for it, yet (to invest in this business for business reasons alone) -- makes the field shallow and un-exposed to the larger game that this can potentially be. Having said that, I feel that the magazine arena will keep getting better." At the helm of the long-time *Goa Today*, which in its pre-internet times played a key role in linking up the Goan diaspora, editor-in-chief Vinayak Naik views the issue differently, "It is a rather unhealthy situation. Just about everybody is pitching in, in the magazine trade. So, there's a no-holds-barred situation. The fresh magazines don't give a damn about the quality of the product they put out for sale. They don't care about content and are only counting on gloss. The tried and tested magazines have begun to feel the impact of the rather abnormal magazine flood." The challenges Naik of Goa Today comes across as the most pessimistic: "Magazines like ours are losing out on the ad front, in a very big way. And advertising is the life-blood of any magazine. It is turning into a huge and monumental struggle to get adverts. Even government advertisements are hard to come by now, due to the tightening of the budget. Viability has come under a cloud. The continuity of magazines is under threat. Our main hurdle is advertising." Says Bhatkuly, founder of the *Business Goa* group, "The challenges that I face issue after issue is to harness talent. I don't consider resource issues — like finance, marketing or the like to be challenges. It is the people involvement and consistent focus or lack of it that tends to be challenging. With only a small pool of skilled talent, the industry needs to train more and more youngsters to be part of the business. Media and journalism is a green-field career avenue in Goa." Mukerjea sees the challenges coming in two areas for *Planet-Goa*: "Since we are in the destination magazine space, which is all about promoting and showcasing Goa as a destination, after having tapped into the State of Goa, unique content seems to be getting somewhat more and more difficult to get. This does take costs up on one side while in parallel it requires us to constantly challenge ourselves to be as innovative as possible so as not to compromise reader relevance and eye-fatigue factors. Secondly, the challenge is to manage economic viability with adequate focus on maintaining quality and credibility levels, both of which are the most important elements when operating in a space like ours." http://www.indianprinterpublisher.com/news/The_state_of_4262.html