Dummies for the paper

Incharge Javed believes demand for ads placement is a testament to popularity of paper in field today

KARACHI: Every newspaper must make money to survive. A sizeable chunk of this money comes from advertising.

The people who make sure this revenue-generating machine functions quietly but efficiently in the background are themselves often the backstage types—invisible but essential. Case in point – our very own traffic department, which acts as a bridge between the production, marketing and editorial departments to ensure all adverts are accounted for and placed on the pages appropriately.

The Express Tribune shares its traffic department with Roznama Express. With around 10 employees coordinating between 11 stations across the country, the traffic department books and places over 250 ads daily, the figure crossing 700 for the Sunday issue. “Saturdays are the most stressful,” says Javed Iqbal, who is in charge of the department. “We hardly have time to breathe, let alone do anything else.”

The dummy run

His colleague Zaheeruddin Faridi, who has been with The Express Tribune since the last three years, says Javed has one of the most sensitive jobs in the organisation. Every evening, traffic sends a ‘dummy’, an ad-running plan, to all stations to make sure everyone—and everything—is on the same page, on the right page.

For all their stress, the traffic department is happy with the way The Express Tribune is progressing. “We’ve been receiving many ads. Sometimes we simply need to refuse; the paper must keep up with its policies.” Javed believes the demand for ads placement is a testament to the popularity of the paper in the field today.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2015.