In FY23, the Central Government’s expenditure on print and electronic media advertisements saw a marginal rise. According to a reply by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in the Rajya Sabha, ₹375.61 crore was spent on this in FY23, the highest in the last three financial years.

This is, however, way less than how much the government used to spend in the past. Since FY15, it spent the most on print and electronic media ads in FY18. Its expenditure was ₹1,105.01 crore then. But since then, it’s been coming down.

Advertisement expenditure saw a sharp fall during the pandemic. In FY21, it was just ₹365.35 crore, which further went down to ₹280.28 crore in FY22.

According to the MIB, it is responsible for “disseminating information on government policies, schemes, and programmes through multiple media of mass communication, including radio, television, the press, social media, internet websites, printed literature, outdoor media, and traditional modes of communication such as dance, drama, and folk recitals.”

Reliance on print ads

In FY15, the Centre spent ₹473.67 crore on electronic media advertisements. This was around ₹50 crore more than how much it spent on print ads. The money spent on electronic media advertisements remained higher than how much was spent on print ads until FY20.

Since then, print media has gotten the lion’s share of the money spent on advertisements. In FY23, while ₹220.34 crore was spent on print ads, the expenditure on electronic media ads was just ₹155.27 crore.

Commenting on the trend, media analyst Karan Taurani said that radio advertisements took the most hit here. “Over the last few years, radio advertisements have come down sharply, considering their low popularity. But TV advertisements haven’t really fallen,” said Taurani, who is a Senior vice-president at Elara Capital.

Business strategy specialist Harish Bijoor said that government ad spending usually goes up when elections are near and that the government may be concentrating more on advertising on digital platforms.

According to the MIB website, it currently provides advertisements to 7,082 newspapers. The advertisement rates differ from publication to publication, depending on their circulation. Apart from that, 504 TV channels also receive government ads.

The Rajya Sabha reply from July 20 also shows that expenditure on outdoor publicity has also been coming down.

In FY23, the expenditure was just 13 per cent of the money spent in FY19. While a whopping ₹235.33 crore was spent in FY19, in FY23 it was just ₹32.85 crore, the lowest in five years.