Valuing newspapers using ‘eyeballs’

Sevanti Ninan gives some valuation tips through her Media Matters Column:

To cap it all, some wise guys at Business Standard worked out the value of a newspaper reader by dividing the valuation of a newspaper by the number of subscribers it had. Going by the prevailing valuations in April when this exercise was done, each Mid-Day reader in Mumbai was valued at Rs. 22,071! By the same yardstick, a Dainik Jagran reader was valued at Rs. 2,372. Today, a Hindustan Times reader would be valued at around Rs. 20,000. The Jagran reader's valuation will doubtless be reassessed after its IPO next year.

It does remains though for someone to work out the nuisance value of the rapidly proliferating media that is now at everybody's doorstep. You could begin by asking Mr. Natwar Singh who was hounded out of government that much faster because the media got into the act.