THE BUSINESS BEHIND…

₹10 Newspaper: How Can It Sell for So Little?

Bilkul Bazaar | Sunday Special

You pick up a newspaper for ₹10 or ₹5, read it over breakfast and move on with your day.

But have you ever wondered: Can the newspaper company really make money by selling a newspaper at such a low price?

The surprising answer is that the cover price is only one part of the newspaper business.

1. The Newspaper Has Two Customers

Unlike many businesses, a newspaper essentially serves two markets:

Readers buy the newspaper.

Advertisers buy space and the attention of those readers.

And, in many cases, advertising is the more important source of revenue.

So when you pay ₹10 for a newspaper, you aren’t necessarily paying the full cost of producing and distributing it.

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2. Printing Costs Money

Before a newspaper reaches your doorstep, there are several expenses:

• Newsprint
• Printing ink
• Electricity and machinery
• Journalists and editorial staff
• Photographers and designers
• Printing-press employees
• Technology and digital systems

A newspaper also has to be printed every single day, often in enormous quantities.

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3. Then Comes Distribution

The printed copies have to reach thousands of locations—sometimes within just a few hours.

The chain can involve:

Printing press → distributor → newspaper agent → vendor → reader

That entire network has costs, while unsold copies may also become a problem.

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4. Then Where Does the Money Come From?

Advertising.

A newspaper with a large readership can sell advertising space to companies wanting access to that audience.

A full-page advertisement, for example, can generate far more revenue than the cover price paid by an individual reader.

That is why newspapers can sometimes afford to keep their cover price relatively low.

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5. Why Keep the Cover Price Low?

This is where the business becomes interesting.

A lower cover price can make the newspaper more attractive to readers.

More readers can mean:

Higher circulation → larger audience → greater advertising appeal → more advertising revenue

So the low cover price can actually be part of the business strategy.

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6. The Newspaper Is Really Selling Attention

Think about it this way:

Reader: “I am buying news for ₹10.”

Newspaper: “I am also building an audience that advertisers want to reach.”

The newspaper business therefore isn’t simply about selling printed paper.

It is about building a large, regular audience and monetising that audience through advertising.

BILKUL SIMPLY

₹10 from the reader + advertising money from businesses = the newspaper business model.

The next time you buy a ₹10 newspaper, remember:

You may be the customer—but your attention is also the product being sold to advertisers.

Note: We seek Sponsors for this column. Please connect with us at editorbilkul@gmail.com