-Aarthi Chandru

Started in 1958 in Bhopal, M P

Enjoys wide circulation in UP, MP, Rajasthan, Haryana,

Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Enjoys over 20 editions in 8

states

Basically, good circulation & readership in the cow-belt

Some areas include: Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Raipur,

Bilaspur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Sekhawati,

Udaipur, Hisar, Panipat, Amritsar, Jalandhar etc

Uses state of the art machinery

Over 90% of NP content is politics oriented

From village to State to national level politics covered

extensively

NRS- ‘03- 1st NP to cross the 1.5 crore readership

A year before- launched a campaign to create a “world

history of 1.50 crore readers”

Established in 1942 in Jhansi, Founder- Puran Chand Gupta

Has over 30 editions, HQ- Kanpur, U P

NRS 2005 listed DJ as highest read Hindi daily

Stated readership of 21.24 million

1st Indian publication to cross the 20 million readership

mark

ABC ‘05- Circulation of over 2.4 million copies

Has 29 printing centres in 10 states

Uses ‘bol-chal ki bhasha’ – to reach out to a larger

audience

Often uses English words written in Devanagri script

Seldom uses chaste/pure Hindi

Has many innovations to its credit

Localization of news- best feature

Each edition has a local page

E.g.; Gujarati version has 4 editions

Has reach even in small towns

One of the fastest growing daily in India

National edition- circulates in metros & main cities

Distribution channel- key to good circulation

Initial years- DB available everywhere, every nook &

corner of the city, at bus stands, in trains (for which it

used hawkers), eating out joints etc

To get a quick foothold- kept attractive invitation price

Never ran short of copies

Went out of its way to keep the distributors happy

Recognized the need to manage ad revenue early on

For e.g., If some ad appeared in rival NP, say NaiDunia-

called up ad executive why they had chose ND over DB!

Actively pursued advertisers

As a result, were high in the minds of the advertisers

In spite of being top Hindi NP, made the effort to reach

out to advertisers

Also maintained link with ad agencies

E.g., During days of monopoly of NaiDunia in Indore, an

annual gathering would be organised where everyone

associated with the NP would be invited including people

from ad agencies. The Chief Ed & owner would not interact

much, apart from the routine “please have snacks, thank you

for coming” bit

DB gave ad agencies royal treatment to be preferred over

others

DB started the trend of creating marketing events to bring

about brand excitement in readers

Followed the twin model scheme: Conducted major events

on one hand & offered media partnership to event

management companies to conduct the event under their

flag

This included: Career fairs, Bollywood star shows, dance

shows, great prizes schemes, fun events etc

Marketing aggression

Localization of news

Use of local & Hinglish language

Good distribution

Favorable rapport with advertisers & ad agencies

Creative innovations such as events marketing

Customer feedback not enough, take advertisers

feedback too

Launch of Chandigarh edition of DB, pre-launch

customer preference survey held

Results showed reader’s preference for a Hinglish paper

as compared to a chaste Hindi paper

Paper adapted that language in the Chandigarh edition

Involved the readers, collected their requirements, their

suggestions and then worked out the NP accordingly

Realized the important role pricing plays

Believed no system is sacrosanct, flexibility is the key

During planning of supplements - for 2 Ahmedabad editions (East

Ahmedabad & West Ahmedabad)- realized that people from east

wanted to know about local affairs of the west- Hence owing to

market demands, a combination was worked out

• Books

Journalism in India: Rangaswami Parthasarathy

Indian Regional Journalism: P K Ravindranath

• Websites

Wikipedia

http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/feb/18spec.htm (Refer)

http://cool-discussions.blogspot.com/2006/02/media-war-

naidunia-vs-dainik-bhaskar.html

http://www.televisionpoint.com/lounge/lounge.php?

id=1175494139