Message in the media: Huge paychecks

Some media houses said to have hiked salaries by 100-200% to take on new players

NEW DELHI: What the media industry witnessed in 2005 and then again in 2007 is repeating all over again.

If launch of this newspaper (DNA) and Hindustan Times (Mumbai edition) in the summer of 2005 had triggered an industry-wide salary hike, it was the entry of Mint (Hindustan Times’ business paper in joint venture with the Wall Street Journal) early last year that forced other media houses to restructure the compensation packages of journalists.

Now as several publications and news channels, including Forbes, Fortune, Deccan Chronicle’s business paper and UTV News channel are set to roll out journalists are flooded with job offers (read fancy salaries).

So, once again, many media houses are internally talking of loosening their purse strings to match the best in the industry, in their effort to retain their talent pool.

The buzz is that at least two large media houses are planning annual increments much ahead of schedule. A mid-term appraisal is also being talked about. Another newspaper, it is believed, is planning to offer “fantastic hikes” to some of its journalists.

Yet another publication has already increased the salaries of its employees by more than double recently. In fact, “blank cheques” and “signing-in amounts” are among the catch-phrases in the media circle these days.

When contacted, Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd, which publishes the Times of India and the Economic Times, refused to comment on the company’s strategy to retain people.

He, however, said that a revision in the salary structure is quite possible across the media industry. “It’s all about demand and supply,” he said. According to Dhariwal, media salaries have already gone through upward spirals.

Commenting on some media organisations offering salary hikes by 100-200%, Dhariwal said: “Any inflation which is so sudden and jumps by multiplication is a cause for concern.”

An editor of a news magazine, on the condition of anonymity, said media organisations would try to revise salaries, but only up to a limit. “Not all will do something as absurd,” he said, referring to the recent salary hikes touching 200% in one of the media houses. “No mature media company would be able to afford a 200% hike across the board. The income of the company has to go up proportionately, too,” he said.

Many newspaper/magazine editors, who were contacted for this story, did not reply, and some dismissed the fancy salary packages offered to journos as a “short-term phenomenon”.

But, the human resource (HR) companies, which track trends like hiring and salaries, are quite gung-ho about the media industry.

The media industry, which is currently growing at 20% a year, is poised to reach $200 billion by 2015, said Sandeep Chaudhary, business leader of the Illinois-headquartered human resource consulting firm Hewitt Associates. “This would mean an intense fight for talent which includes journalists, editors, sales and marketing people, distribution people, etc. Salary in the media sector, which increased by 14.7% in 2007, is expected to rise by over 15% this year,” he said.

About 20-30% of the positions in media organisations often lie vacant due to the pressing issue of attrition, which is anywhere between 20% and 25% and the difficulty in attracting quality talent, said E Balaji, chief executive officer of Ma Foi Consultants Ltd. Hence, there would be a substantial increase in the remuneration to retain available talent.

Along with the salary hikes, media organisations have also started laying more stress on bonuses. Apart from the performance-linked bonus, organisations also dole out loyalty bonuses and joining bonuses to attract talent and retain it.

“Though bonus is not an entirely new concept in the media spectrum, it is only in the last one year or so that more emphasis is being given to it,” according to Sarabjeet Sachar, founder CEO of media recruitment specialist ASPIRATION.

“This is an imperative attraction measure and is used to attract experienced talent mostly at the senior level,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, founder and chairman of HeadHunters India Pvt Ltd, referring to loyalty and joining bonus.

But if you were to ask for the pecking order of media vis-à-vis other sectors, in terms of salary and compensation package, it’s still much behind banking, financial services, insurance and information technology, among the hot areas.

“Though electronic media pays about 40% more than print, the overall media pay package, especially at the mid and junior levels will be approximately 30% lower than that in banking, financial services and IT,” Chaudhary said.

m_nivedita@dnaindia.net
g_priyanka@dnaindia.net