Comparative Study of Five Leading Periodical Publishing States of India: A Study

Abstract

Purpose: - The present study is an attempt to understand the periodical publication, distribution pattern of five leading periodical publishing states of India, carried over by analyzing the secondary data. The periodicals under study include, Newspapers, Newsmagazines, Community Papers, Journals, Serials etc. published in Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu published during the period 1900-2013. The study is an analysis carried over secondary data.

Scope: - Although, the scope of the study is limited to the state of Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in India, but shall definitely prove of great help to understand the periodical publishing scenario of India. The study can be extended beyond India to understand how periodicals as primary sources of information cater the information requirements of the public at large.

Methodology/Approach:-The study is purely undertaken by analyzing the secondary data, retrieved from the official website of the Registrar of Newspapers for India on January 20, 2013. The five states under study were chosen on the basis of being the five leading periodical publishing states of the India. Some of the key areas studied include, Registration Distribution, Periodicity, year and decade wise growth of periodicals during the period of investigation, languages covered correlating population and literacy distribution of each state with the rest of the county, and various other areas were evaluated to understand the overall periodical publishing scenario of India in general and the states under study in particular.

Findings: - During the period of study 118938 periodicals were registered with RNI, out of which 65907 titles are registered against states under study, under 22 different periodicities in more than 130 Indian and foreign languages. On average more than 3398 titles are registered with each individual state of the country. Each literate individual in India has a share of 0.42 newspapers of the total newspapers published across the country with 0.152 titles to per 1000 literate persons