Just before the excitement around the Manic Monday win (I admit, it does sound better Sizzling Sunday), I was talking to some friends about why cricket magazines in India have never taken off in a big way in India. By all reckoning, it should have been a through and through winning format. There are a huge number of people passionate about cricket, there’s a high level of understanding of the nuances of the game and a national cricketing calendar that is so packed there will never be slag issues.A lot of people and media companies tried to have a go at a cricketing magazine. Some serious money has been invested and some big names have been signed on to write for those magazines - but all of them have come a cropper. It’s so puzzling we spent a round of drinks debating why it should have been so. Here are some hypotheses that came up:
1. Given that most people have a general aversion to reading, would they pay 20 or 30 bucks every week to read – even if it is about something they are as mad about as cricket. Despite it being free, I doubt a large number (read – commercially viable) of resident Indians visit the sites like Cricinfo or Rediff on non-match days; I suspect a substantial number of visitors to these sites are NRIs who pine for cricket in baseball country.
2. With the surfeit of news and analysis on everything related to cricket on television and newspapers, there is nothing left to be said in magazines.
3. We love to discuss match statistics and minutiae which tend to lose their impact if the immediacy is lost and a lag of a week could render them completely irrelevant.
4. Our affair with cricket is very temperamental – notice the plummeting ratings after the West Indies World Cup and now the T20 ratings. Maybe magazine economics don’t allow for such wild swings in circulation and the resultant unpredictability of ad revenues. (A related point - this unpredictability is a headache for cricket broadcasters too; but the upside on television when India does well is so high that it possibly makes up for the downsides when we sink.)
5. A big source of excitement for sports magazines in the pre-satellite TV days were glossy action pictures. But other than photography connoisseurs, I don’t think many will be interested in those in today’s age of stump cameras and slow motion replays.
Whatever the reason, just for the sake of some good writing I hope a cricket magazine makes good in India.
4 comments:
I don't think Indians are sports lovers, they get passionate about any sport only when national pride is at stake.(With the exception of football fans in Kolkata, Goa and Kerala). Any magazine that tries to portray cricket as a game and examines its various aspects without getting jingoistic about it will not work.
But even if that is the case, there is still sufficient India cricket to fill up a weekly. So why would they not buy a magazine to read and talk about that. Not as "pure lovers of the game" but as a jingoistic rave or rant about the Indian team and it's players' performance.
Cinema and cricket are two sides of the same coin to the Indian masses. If film stars are worshipped, cricket stars are venerated.
Despite the passions generated by the two, Indian cinema has spwawned a publishing industry that is thriving in almost every vernacular language. While Cricket, The Great Indian Passion, has never managed to sell more than a few thousand magazines copies, at best.
I feel that while the heart of cricket is in India the brain of the game is still firmly rooted in the good old Blighty.
Who invented the One Day Game?
England.
Where do most international cricketers go to get 'county' experience?
England.
Who formulated the 20/20 format?
England.
Where is cricket's bible published?
Cricket in England has given birth to a canon of literature. Cricket in India has given birth to Mandira Bedi.
Indians watch cricket like they watch movies.With their hearts.
The English enjoy cricket with their brains.
And writing in any avatar needs the latter to flourish.
Yes, well said. But I would have thought more people may want to see Mandira Bedia, but they'd want to hear Harsha Bhogle.
Post a Comment