Will women's publications vanish from newsstands?

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): "It's getting thinner," a woman griped as she flipped through a favorite magazine at a newsstand on Jl. Jend. Sudirman.

Right she was. The media has felt the full brunt of the currency crisis in falling ad placements and the soaring price of newsprint, charged in U.S. dollars.

About 70 percent of the nation's 286 newspapers are on the brink of bankruptcy, according to the Association of Indonesian Newspaper Publishers (SPS).

The price of newsprint has risen along with the rupiah's free fall. Newsprint is Rp 7,960 per kilogram this month, compared to Rp 1,254 per kilogram in January last year.

After tough negotiations overseen by the Ministry of Industry, the Association of Indonesian Pulp and Paper Producers and SPS finally agreed in December to set the price of newsprint between US$500 and $505 per ton, from a rate of $535 on Oct.3.

Some publications are folding or suspending publication in the hope the situation will improve.

Raket sports tabloid announced it would halt operations for at least six months, and five North Sumatra-based weeklies stopped publication last month.

An anonymous source at weekly Jakarta Jakarta, like Raket a publication of the Gramedia Group, said it would now be published monthly.

Others have embarked on cost-cutting measures of reducing the number of pages, raising prices, scaling back publication frequency, fine-tuning budgets and shortening working hours.

In the hardest cut of all, some have been forced to lay off employees to survive.

An anonymous source at Media Indonesia said the daily had laid off 137 employees, including 37 from the editorial section, during January.

"Most of them were contract employees," the source said.

The newspaper has also halved the size of its eight-page supplement section.

Dewi women's monthly, published by Chandra Sakti Foundation, raised its price from Rp 8,000 to Rp 10,000 in January.

Pages have also been sheared, from 272 in December to 254 in January. The February issue will be a slim 148 pages.

Femina women's weekly, the country's oldest magazine for women and a sister publication of Dewi, still sells for Rp 6,000, excluding special editions costing Rp 7,000.

But February's issue is down to 130 pages from 200 pages in December.

Director of both Femina and Dewi magazines, Mirta Kartohadiprojo, said the reduction in pages for both publications was due to lower ad revenues.

Most products advertised in Dewi, she said, were brand goods, many of which had closed down outlets or reduced promotional budgets.

The newsprint price has been another burden.

"It is possible to maintain the number of pages by adding more articles to replace the pages usually used by ads, but this will be very expensive," said Mirta, president director of PT Gaya Favorit Press, publisher of Femina.

Both publications now have restricted work hours -- 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. except on deadline dates.

She did not rule out further cutbacks.

"Previously, Dewi had up to 300 pages, and now it has been cut by 100 pages.

"But it's still possible to cut even more pages if the situation does not get any better."

Dewi's circulation is about 50,000 copies and Femina registers 140,000, Mirta said.

"We haven't seen a decline in our circulation yet because our present issues are still special editions, such as on Idul Fitri. But, later, there might be a decline."

She said she would also consider raising the price of Femina.

The publications have yet to hear opinions from readers, 90 percent of whom are women, about the cuts in number of pages.

Tabloids

Tabloids are also reeling from the economic blows to their revenue.

Citra, an entertainment world weekly published by PT Metromandiri Media Utama, reduced pages from 48 to 32 beginning with its Jan. 25 issue.

"But we haven't raised the price from the current Rp 1,500 per copy," managing editor Maman Suherman said last month.

"There has been a decline in our circulation but it's not much, less than 10 percent."

Citra's weekly circulation averaged from 330,000 to 350,000 before the crisis.

The tabloid, usually on newstands every Monday, was noticeably absent on Feb. 2, two days after the Idul Fitri celebration.

"We won't appear because we believe the number of buyers will be less than usual as people will still be busy with the celebrations," Maman said. "Besides, most of retailers are in their hometowns."

He said all options would be considered.

"We don't know what we're going to do after Feb. 9, but we will look at the situation, and see whether the crisis has worsened the situation for the newspaper industry or not ... "

Citra also implemented efficiency measures -- the office shuts at 9 p.m. on the first three days of the work week, and utility usage has been lowered.

Weekly Wanita Indonesia has reduced the number of pages and raised its price.

Head of its advertising division, Devi Rinjani, said the management increased the retail price from Rp 1,500 to Rp 1,800 in January due to the crisis.

Pages were reduced from 48 to 40.

"The situation has forced us to do this, or else we would have to close down," Devi said. "So far, there have been no complaints from the readers.

"Like other media, our ads are also declining. What can we do? Clients said they have had to cut their promotional budgets because of the crisis."

The tabloid is published by PT Citra Media Persada; Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, President Soeharto's eldest daughter, is its director.

Circulation figures have also tailed off.

"Generally, circulation was around 400,000, but it's decreased by around 20 percent," Devi said, adding that 60 percent of circulation was by subscription.

Nova, the main competitor of Wanita Indonesia, has not increased its retail price of Rp 1,800 or cut its 40 pages.

It has, however, ceased publishing its supplement section, which was mostly devoted to recipes.