Will free dailies change the media landscape?

“The difference between the West and India is that there is no raddi (recycling) value (of newspapers) in the West. If you give out something for free, the challenge is to make sure it ends up with the reader and not in the raddi,” says Guha, echoing what has been conventional wisdom in recent years, especially from paid newspaper publishers, on why free papers will not take off in India.

Adds Dhariwal: “In India, the raddi value poses a challenge to such a model.”

But Kasturi’s Murali says it isn’t a major issue for Ergo as he sends out teams that monitor Ergo’s distribution and conduct random checks on the outsourced distribution agent responsible for deliveries.

And Jagran’s Gupta dismisses the significance of the raddi hurdle, saying that in many ways, it is not really unique to free papers.

Says Gupta: “Paid or free, 5-10% of all papers end up in raddi.”