Re: Who cares to buy a Telugu book? IRT Madhava's message
Bapa Rao (brao@tis.com)
Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:34:26 -0700 (PDT)
> It is my understanding that swaati monthly wouldn't be viable
> independently if not for the subsidization by swaati weekly. vEmoori
> balaraam once said that the only reason he keeps on with his monthly is
> because of his love for his first magazine. He also said that the readers
> of his monthly do not usually read his weekly and vice versa.
IMO, when a literate culture is combined with a strong internal
economy, there would be room for a broad spectrum
of publications to be viable. It may be a sign of the relatively
small size of the Telugu reading public that we are talking about
Swati and Prabha as though they are competitors instead of being
oriented towards complementary sections of the market.
Another issue is the positioning of the upper echelons of the Telugu
population vis-a-vis Telugu language publications. What I mean is this:
New York Times has a very low circulation when compared to National
Enquirer. However, NYT will continue to prosper because (1) it
meets the information needs of people who can be broadly described as movers
and shakers and (2) there are sufficient such people to keep NYT
operating at a newspaper level instead of shrinking to a specialty
newsletter level.
When we compare with the corresponding segments of the Telugu economy,
(I speculate here) we may find that there is little relevance for a
Telugu version of NYT, as far as the upper echelons of Telugus are
concerned--their activities are more directly served by the NYTs,
(replace equivalently with Economic Times or whatever)
which they are more than well-equipped to absorb. This may be true
even when such activities concern Telugu life. (To bring the point
closer to home, on telusa we managed to have fairly intensive
conversations about Telugu lit and culture, without being hindered
by the absence of widespread Telugu communication software.)
None of these are exact statements, they are just speculations about
broad trends. Paradoxically, the status of Telugu is probably weakest
in the most economically strongest segments of the Telugu people. I think
this is what accounts for the hard times faced by "quality" Telugu output.
Bapa Rao