However, the ad rates in vernacular and Hindi newspapers is expected to grow faster, due to the rising advertiser focus toward rural areas and small towns for incremental demand growth, according to an article posted by Financial Express.

Print media is highly fragmented in India, with over 62,483 registered newspapers throughout the country. Among them, Hindi newspapers comprise 40 percent, while English papers make up only 15 percent of the market. Vernacular papers fill up the remaining 35 percent, according to the study.

For each copy of a Hindi newspaper bought, around seven to nine people read it, while the corresponding figure for English dailies is merely two to four. Hindi and vernacular newspapers boast a much higher readership, as 17 percent of the literate population end up reading Hindi dailies, versus only 2.7 percent reading English dailies.

However, in spite of the higher readership of vernacular and Hindi dailies, English papers account for more than 53 percent of the total newspaper advertising pie. The advertising rates of English newspapers, in addition, are nine times higher than those of Hindi and nearly 13 times higher than those of vernacular newspapers.

According to Smita Jha of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the huge difference in the shares results from the fact that most of the business papers (in which the ad rates are even higher than general English newspapers) are in English.

“Most of the marketers target the niche readers. Most of the high priced lifestyle products get advertised in the English newspapers” said Siddharth Mukherjee from Adex.

Mukherjee pointed out that the total ad market was around Rs 63 billion in 2006 for all media. However, around 90 to 95 percent of advertiser’s money penetrated to only half of the population, Financial Express reported.