Advertising in publications owned by Bennett, Coleman & Company - the parent company of the Times of India - are often indistinguishable from news and editorial content, according to an article on mid-day.com, a Web site based in Mumbai, India.
The World Press Institute (WPI) confirmed that businesses can buy news articles featuring the advertiser, news photo placement and feature interviews in which business owner supply the questions and answers. WPI calls this practice "edvotorial," or paid news.
Companies such as McDonald’s and Roopam, an Indian clothing outlet, have paid up to INR1,254 (about US$28) per square centimeter to purchase news features, interviews or photos that promote their products or services, according to mid-day.com. McDonald’s, for example, purchased a front-page photograph in The Bombay Times promoting a new home delivery service.
Paid news segments appearing in the company’s publications are created by Medianet, a business division of Bennett, Coleman & Company launched last year. For a time, paid content carried the word Medianet at the end of stories or photographs, but mid-day.com reported that "soon after the launch, the discreet Medianet at the bottom disappeared, equally discreetly."
The Times of India did not respond to mid-day.com's e-mail inquiries about the practice.
Bennett, Coleman and Company is India's largest publisher and a privately held media and entertainment company that publishes several newspapers and magazines and owns music stores and a radio music channel. The company also publishes the Economic Times, one of the most popular business newspapers in the world, with a circulation of more than 400,000.
