The Comparison of The Times

of India and The Hindu from

an infotainment perspective

SOC 474
Term Project
Made by:
Akash Chauhan
Akash Kashyap
H. Sripath
What we intend to do:
Show the rise of Infotainment, Tabloidization
in the news media fuelled by the increasingly
consumerist behaviour of the urban society.
Look at the history of the two newspapers
and at the present ownership and how it
affects the newspapers current situation
Compare the two newspapers with an
emphasis on the infotainment and culture
industry perspective
 A few points:
Consumerism:

Used to describe the effects of

equating personal happiness with
purchasing material possessions and
consumption

Logic behind consumerism is the fact

that in an industrialized economy
where the overall wealth of the people
is improving, the people achieve
happiness by the ability to spend
money on new products and gives
some meaning to their lives

Thus in such a society, it is necessary

for the industry to keep producing a
new product every few years
A few points:
Culture Industry:
The term culture industry was coined by Theodor Adorno (1903-
1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973).

Popular culture is like a factory producing standardized cultural

goods to manipulate the masses into acceptance without any
choice of their own

With the rise of the Culture Industry, it is argued that culture is

now dominated by the forces of market exchange and profit

The logic of the culture industry is that of the industrial mode of

production and the consumerist behaviour of industrial societies.
There is a loss of the freedom of thought in a culture industry
 A few points:
Infotainment:

Infotainment refers to the

segments of programming in
television news programs which
overall consist of both "hard news"
segments and interviews, along
with celebrity interviews and
human drama stories

There is an increased focus on

marketing, not journalism.
A few points:
Hard News consists of the idea of: Seriousness and Timeliness

Soft News consists of articles on Arts and entertainment,

sports, lifestyles, "human interest", and celebrity gossip.

Tabloidization:
Tabloidization is media trend involving a shift away from
government and foreign affairs to a more entertainment-style
of journalism.

For example.. What is the first thing that comes to your mind
when you think about what Bill Clinton did?

Is it by any chance Monica Lewinsky? This is a direct effect of

the huge media emphasis on the scandalous news items in
order to promote sales.
FRONT PAGE OF THE TWO NEWSPAPERS
Comparison of the front page
tabs
History of the newspapers:
The Hindu:

Est. 1878 by a group of 6 men led by G. Subramania Iyer.

The newspaper started printing at its own press, christened 'The National Press',
established on borrowed capital.

It issued a quarter-size paper with a front-page full of advertisements until 1958.

In the late 1980's its ownership passed into hands of the family's younger
members

Worldpress.org lists The Hindu as a left-leaning independent newspaper.

This political polarization is supposed to have taken place since N. Ram took
over as editor-in-chief on June 27, 2003

The Hindu is a family-run business. It was headed by G. Kasturi from 1965 to

1991, N. Ravi from 1991 to 2003, and by his brother, N. Ram, since June 27th
2003. Other family members are directors of The Hindu and its parent company,
Kasturi and Sons.
History of the newspapers:
The Times of India:

The Times of India was founded on Nov 3, 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of
Commerce, and served the British residents of western India

It adopted its present name in 1861

Originally British owned and controlled, its last British editor was Ivor S. Jehu, who resigned
the editorship in 1950
The Times of India is owned by Bennet, Coleman & Company (Controlled by Indu and
Vineet Jain) popularly known as The Times Group which also publishes The Economic
Times, Mumbai Mirror, TIMES NOW, Femina & Filmfare, Planet M, Radio Mirchi and
indiatimes.com web portal to name a few.
It has been by and large viewed as a pro-establishment paper. It tends to vary in its support
between the BJP and Congress Party, depending on who holds the reins of the Central
Government. The executive editor at present is Jaideep Bose

It has come under attack because of tabloidization of its content and focus on infotainment
rather than hard news in recent times.
 History of the newspapers:

Conclusion:
TOI has placed more emphasis on an industry like
setup and has branched out into various other
fields in the news and entertainment industry

Hindu Group which has been a tightly owned family

business with its entire focus on the newspaper

This difference can be seen in the emphasis placed

by the TOI on the entertainment business and the
infotainment and tabloid style news prevalent in it
today as compared to The Hindu which has in
general stuck to the "hard news

We can also see the effect of the size of Bennet,

Coleman and Co. in the ads in TOI promoting its
own brands (Radio Mirchi, Times Now etc.) using
the newspaper medium
 Comparative Study of various sections of The Hindu
and The Times of India:

Comparison on the basis of the number of Page 3 articles:

TOI has a significantly higher proportion of articles related to
celebrities and tabloid style journalism as compared to the Hindu on
the same dates (6th to 10th November, 2006)
**It should be noted that the result provided in the table below does not include
the daily supplement (Kanpur Times) which is essentially a tabloid style paper
dedicated to gossip and celebrity photos.

Newspaper Total no. of pages Articles dedicated to Page 3

Times of India 16 8 to 11
(apart from the supplement Kanpur Times*)

The Hindu 24 2 to 3
Hindu TOI
 A Comparison of the international
section

TOI

Hindu
Comparative Study of various sections of The
Hindu and The Times of India:

Comparison on the basis of the space given to the Advertisements:

The larger space given to advertisements in general reflect the consumerist nature of
our society and the increased emphasis on colourful eye catching products designed to
capture the readers attention in the newspaper.
The newspaper also benefits from the increased revenue this space generates
everyday.
It also reduces the necessity to come up with extra columns of hard news for the paper.
TOI here also surpasses the Hindu based on the ratio of ad-space to the total no of
pages.

Newspaper Total no. of pages Average Advertisement Space

Times of India 16 3 to 4 pages

The Hindu 24 4 to 5 pages

TOI Front Page

Hindu Ad
Comparative Study of various sections of
The Hindu and The Times of India:
Comparison on the basis of number of colored pages:

Consumerism in the society drives the newspapers to give out things which
attract their attraction, they present things which are eye catching and flashy.
Since the readers will not hesitate to switch to their competitors, the newspapers
try to increase their circulation by the help of eye catching pictures of celebrities
and other hot stuff.
The Times of India rarely has a section without a celebrity picture whereas The
Hindu is more sedate in this regard with a greater emphasis on hard news.

Newspaper Total no. of pages Colored Pages

Times of India 16+4* 6+4*

The Hindu 24 4 to 6

*Kanpur Times
Comparative Study of various
sections of The Hindu and The Times
of India:
Space given to infotainment
based news in different sections:

The Hindu has on an average two

articles appearing in the entire
newspaper based on infotainment
most them occurring on the
International news column and a few
on the second page which mostly
concerns about health tips and talk
of the town.

Times of India has a bare minimum

of one article based on infotainment
in each separate section on the
newspaper. There are celebrity
pictures which attracts the attention
of the readers.
Case study :
Recent electoral results of US as covered by The Hindu and The
Times of India:

The result of the US elections was a sweeping victory for the Democrats
over the Republicans for the first time in 12 years.
The Times of India while giving the facts and statistics has placed a
greater emphasis on the huge win of Hillary Clinton (wife of former
president Bill Clinton) from New York and her rumored run for presidency
in 2008.
They try to make or present such news so as to people who are
otherwise uninterested in such news also take notice of it.
Another important fact pointing out in the TOI news is the effect of these
results on Indian US nuclear deal which was started by President George
Bush which is yet another effort to raise some eyes towards this news
by making it relevant to the readers of certain mindset.
Case study :
The Hindu on the other hand covers the news more deeply giving an
insight of the reasons behind such a sudden change of trend in the election
results which involves the policies of the US government on Iraq war and
various other foreign and national policies. The reactions of the Republican
Party and the turmoil created within the party get more emphasis.
The Hindu thus lays a greater emphasis on the news as it is with a tendency
to report the hard news without too much emphasis on the Hillary Clinton
angle. On the whole, the Hindu has covered the elections in a more
balanced manner, covering both the Republican side as well as the
Democrats than the TOI.

We can see that the TOI has laid a greater emphasis on the infotainment
perspective and has been able to maintain its larger share of the readership
based on this approach of eye catching headlines and personal interest
stories (here Hillary Clinton) rather than the Hindu which has laid a greater
emphasis on the hardcore facts of the story.
Readership trends of the two
newspapers:

Results of the National Readership survey (NRS) conducted by AC

Nielson for the year 2006:

The Times of India: 7.4 million readers

The Hindu : 4.05 million readers

The majority of the English dailies are sold in urban industrialized

areas. The readership consists of people living in the late
industrial phase in a consumerist society.

This makes it imperative for the newspapers to be eye catching

and glamorous in order to survive the competition. In such a
scenario, we can see how the Times of India with its increased
emphasis on the infotainment and tabloid styles news events to
garner more readership with a more colorful presentation and eye
catching photos of models and celebrities in nearly every page as
compared to the more sedate Hindu
Readership trends of the two
newspapers:
The Times of India with its freebies, eye
catching presentation and increased
visibility is clearly able to capture the
majority share of the readers in a
consumer based economy and is hence
the largest read English newspaper in
the country

The general trend among students

wanting a greater emphasis on hard
news is towards the Hindu while a
majority of the students prefer the
Times of India for its eye catching
news and its special focus on glamour
and pin up images of actresses in the
Kanpur Times section of the paper.
IITK Juntas response
I hate either of them.
Hindu:
1. Lack of true content and analysis dubbed under good usage of language.
2. Extremely one-sided view points and often, an editorial stance directly against the ground
realities of the situation.
3. Pseudo-secular bandwagon.
4. Ads. in Tamil script in all editions (Not to mean I have anything against any regional
language).
TOI:
1. Blatant plagiarism.
2. Creation of fake news to fill space.
3. Non-sense in the name of news.
4. Totally irrelevant pictures and trivia.
5. Sensationalism.
Common reason:
Ads promoting sister products from Bennett-Coleman and whoever's the other owner. This is
pronouncedly so in the case of TOI.
Nevertheless, I subscribe to Economic Times on weekdays and TOI on weekends.
CKV
IITK Juntas response
My choice has always been The Hindu because of its refined
language, large degree of authenticity of the news and above all
for its vast outreach that caters to almost all social strata.

TOI for me bcoz its more glamourous(with pics n all) n it gives

more sports news than any other english daily

I prefer TOI. The presentation of the paper, which includes the

colour combination and fonts etc. is more amicable. News
headlines are such that they grasp your curiosity...

I dislike The Hindu because its so strongly biased towards

'pseudo-secularism. Plus its too dullTOI is flashy and tends to
do anything and everything just to catch another eye.Is that
journalism ... No. Is that entertainment .... Yes! So when I need
entertainment , I prefer TOI and for news , I prefer HT or The
Indian Express
IITK Juntas response
There's one similarity I see between the too though.

All Hindu editions, including the Delhi one seem to come

from some crackpot's head in Chennai.

And all TOI editions, irrespective of edition, are all the

same and come from a common place too: the TOI-let.