发号施令

Indian media
印度媒体

Calling the shots
发号施令

FromThe Economistprint edition
摘自《经济学人》印刷版

India's newspapers embrace a profitable but questionablenew sideline
印度报业在经营一份有利润但不正当的新副业

ONE of India's leading newspapers launched an unusual advertising drive last month. “Money cannot buy our integrity” read a front-page slogan in Daily News & Analysis (DNA), a Mumbai daily. “Make the headlines tomorrow. By paying for it,” it added, in reference to some other papers' supposed tendency to give favourable coverage to firms that place advertisements. That charge is hard to prove. But an increasingly popular practice is exposing Indian newspapers to growing conflicts of interest: accepting payments for ads in the form of shares in the advertiser's firm.
上月，印度一家知名的报业集团发动了一场不同寻常的广告战。“正直操守，不为名利”是孟买报纸《每日新闻和分析》的一条头版广告词。在谈及同行对有投放广告的合作企业进行偏袒报道时，《每日新闻和分析》称他们“花钱登上了明天的头条”。是否花钱的真相很难证实。但是，在印度报纸日益增长的利益冲突中，通过以股票支付广告费的业务正显得日益普遍。

The Times Group, the country's biggest media firm, started the practice in 2004. According to its website, it now has 120 “private treaties” of this nature, which “make the power of The Times Group available to our Treaty Partners”. The firm's executives insist that neither its own shareholdings nor its advertisers influence its coverage. But articles in its publications do not always reveal its own interest. Sevanti Ninan, a media activist, reckons the practice will “grow and grow in a media which anyway has little notion of conflicts of interest”. Indeed, HT Media Ltd, the publisher of the Hindustan Times, recently started offering private treaties, as did one of the owners of DNA, the Dainik Bhaskar group, even though DNA itself does not offer ads-for-equity deals.
印度最大的媒体集团The Times Group于2004年开展此项业务。The Times Group在官方网站介绍称，现已签署120份“财产转让契约”，“让The Times Group的影响力惠及我们的契约方”。其行政主管坚信，该集团的控股权和广告客户不会对客观报道产生影响。不过，其媒体刊印的文章也不会披露其中利益。媒体活动家Sevanti Ninan认为以股票支付广告费的业务将会增长，也会在“和其利益冲突甚少的”媒体行业增长。确实如此，《印度斯坦时报》的出版商HT Media Ltd最近也开始了提供财产转让契约，此举效仿《每日新闻和分析》的所有者之一Dainik Bhaskar集团的做法，尽管《每日新闻和分析》尚未提供以股票支付广告费的协定。

India's newspaper industry, bucking a worldwide trend, is flourishing. New titles hit the newsstands practically every month. More than 350m do not yet subscribe to a newspaper, which, coupled with rising literacy, promises a long-term boom. A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that India's print industry would grow from 149 billion rupees ($3.6 billion) in 2007 to 281 billion rupees in 2012.
逆势而进的印度报业呈现欣欣向荣的发展局面。事实上，新刊物每月也在向报摊袭来。印度有3.5亿多文化人尚未订阅报纸，而随着识字人数的增加，印度报纸行业前景必定长期看好。PricewaterhouseCoopers最近的一份报告估计，印度的出版业将从2007年的1490亿卢比($3.6十亿)增长到2012年的2810亿卢比。

But papers are absurdly cheap thanks to incessant price wars. The Times of India, for example, costs just 2.50 rupees. That leaves it and others heavily dependent upon advertisers. No wonder, then, that DNA's campaign is attracting so much attention.
由于持续不断的价格战，报纸也是不可思议地廉价。比如，一份《印度时报》仅卖2.50卢比的价格。《印度时报》和报业同行因此也只好依赖广告商盈利。难怪《每日新闻和分析》的广告活动备受关注。