Role of agents and subagents in the distribution of newspapers: A functional analysis

Abstract

The sale of newspaper is not a full time job and the agents and subagents do this for a commission. Thus the publisher achieve increased sale by appointing Distribution Agents and Agents & subagents derive some income by engaging themselves in the task. In this context, it is interesting to analyse the Role of Agents and subagents in the distribution of newspapers. For this study, sale of two English dailies and two Tamil dailies by the agents and the subagents in Chennai city in the State of Tamil Nadu was taken. The analysis shows that the relationship between the publisher & agent and agent & subagent is that of the principal and the agent but in practice the relationship of former is governed by a memorandum of agreement and there is no standard memorandum of agreement for the latter.