Patrika to strengthen its presence

Courtsey: www.exchange4media.com

With a presence in six states in the country and 25 editions nationwide, the Patrika Group is looking for further expansions in 2010. This apart, the Group is actively working in various other domains as well, such as web, mobile, and outdoor. Siddharth Kothari, Additional MD and Arvind Kalia, National Marketing Head, share Patrika Group’s future plans with exchange4media.

With the launch of ‘Just Bhopal’, ‘Its Indore’, and ‘Just Jabalpur’ daily supplements, the Patrika Group has sought to rejuvenate its readers with its way of presentation. The Group provides a variety of content to young readers with Daily News and News Today newspaper.

Speaking on the various initiatives undertaken by the Group, Kothari said, “In the year 2009, Patrika has grown from strength to strength through qualitative journalism and local endorsement. Whether it is ‘Just Bhopal’, ‘Its Indore’ or ‘Nano Patrika’ in Jabalpur, Patrika’s connect with the local people and youth has had a resounding effect on its overall prospects.”

To strengthen its presence in central India, the Group had forayed into the Madhya Pradesh market in 2008, and further strengthened its reach in the state in 2009 with seven back to back launches. According to Arvind Kalia, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were monopolistic markets and there was a tremendous scope and latent demand for a sizable player in the market. Seeing the potential and convincing gap between the existing players, Patrika decided to enter in Madhya Pradesh as a morning Hindi daily. “The Group has achieved a circulation of more than 2 million copies India wide and in MP it is little less than 6 lakh copies,” Kalia informed.

He further noted, “80 per cent of the total ad spend on Madhya Pradesh are on Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur alone (Source: AdEx, April-September ’09, excluding House Ads) and with the launch of the Jabalpur edition, Patrika happens to be the only newspaper to cover Eastern as well as Western Madhya Pradesh. Moreover, our Bangalore and Chennai editions are also doing well.”

When asked whether the year 2009 was as per expectations, Kalia replied that circulation and revenues generated during 2009 were achieved as per target. “The Group is ambitiously planning further geographical expansions in the year ahead. Many new editions are on cards in 2010,” he added.

The Patrika Group also has News Today, an afternoon daily in Jaipur and Indore. ‘Daily News’, a morning Hindi daily in the Rajasthan market, was introduced as a flanking brand. “Today, Daily News is the No. 3 newspaper in Jaipur city with a total readership of 4.50 lakh in Rajasthan,” Kalia claimed.

Other than the newspapers, the Patrika Group is emerging as a complete media conglomerate having spread its wings to web portal (patrika.com), outdoor advertising (Planet Outdoor), Madhya Pradesh, FM radio (95 FM Tadka in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh), and many more new ventures.

The Patrika Group is today present in six states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil nadu – and with more than 25 editions. “It has been ranked 29th amongst Top 100 paid for dailies by World Association of Newspaper in 2009,” Kalia said in conclusion.