Hindi Media

Amar Ujala, the fourth largest Hindi daily in terms of readership, is set to get a strategic partner. One of India’s largest regional media groups will acquire an 18 per cent stake in Amar Ujala Publications Ltd (AUPL), the company that publishes the newspaper, it is learnt. Amar Ujala has been in the news for the past two years, ever since private equity firm DE Shaw, which had picked up an 18 per cent stake in AUPL in 2006 for Rs 117 crore, sought an exit and a return of around 25% on its investment. DE Shaw was insistent that AUPL either lists itself or sells to a buyer identified by the private equity firm. When AUPL resisted, DE Shaw dragged the company to court. After a prolonged and messy battle, AUPL agreed to pay DE Shaw for its 18 per cent stake. AUPL has ever since been looking for a strategic investor. The company valued itself at around Rs 850 crore. Subhash Chandra’s Zee Group entered the fray recently, and there were some rumours that Amar Ujala’s promoters wo...

Reports coming in from different sources say that Zee group is all set to take over India leading Hindi daily Amar Ujala. The deal size is said to be worth 1100 crore rupees. Zee is expected to inform BSE about the deal on Wenesday. Rajul Maheshwari will remain director till December 31 and Sunil Mutreja will act as CEO of Amar Ujala after take over by Zee. Amar Ujala is 4th largest Hindi daily in India as per Indian Readership Survey (IRS) behind Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and Hindustan and ahead of Rajasthan Patrika. It is assumed that if the take over takes place  war between leading regional players in Hindi belt will resume. In India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh Amar Ujala is in direct competition with the market leader and world's largest read daily Dainik Jagran. In western UP there is close fight between the two while Jagran has a clear edge in eastern and central UP. In Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir Amar Ujala is the market le...

hindimedia1@gmail.com So after Delhi now its turn of Mumbai. The financial capital of India is going to witness a turf war among new and old players of Hindi media. On 22nd May Metro Daily News India Private Limited will launch its 24 page tabloid Metro7Days. The new player has plans to launch 14 editions from different cities. The daily will be priced at 2/-. Another player waiting in the wings is Lokmat Samachar. After launching its Jalgaon edition on May 15 it plans to enter Pune and subsequently Mumbai. Lokmat group which publishes leading Marathi daily Lokmat and Lokmat Times in English seems to have grandiose plans for its Hindi newspaper. Group editor of the Lokmat Samachar Girish Mishra has already been transferred to Pune from where he is supposed to give final shapes to his strategy of taking the newspaper to Mumbai. At present there are four editions of Lokmat Samachar which will go up to seven after the launch of three more ediions. It is interesting to note that the leader...

Courtesy: livemint.com Anushree Chandran, anushree.m@livemint.com Living Media India Ltd, which publishes print titles such as India Today, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar, among others, is set to launch a Hindi broadsheet Aaj Tak in the next six months. The group operates a Hindi news channel by the same name which is over 10 years old. The group has also set its sights on the southern market. It is gearing up to launch a Malayalam daily that would compete with Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi in the Kerala market. A team is already working on the project. A Gujarati news magazine (separate from India Today in Gujarati) is also on the cards. While a senior India Today executive confirmed these developments on condition of anonymity, Ashish Bagga, CEO, Living Media, said there was nothing in the offing immediately. He declined to elaborate further. The Malayalam paper and the Gujarati magazine will be published under the newly created corporate entity under Prabhu Chawla, former edit...

There is going to be major reshuffling in the Kanpur's print media space. Amar Ujala under the leadership of Dinesh Juyal its new editor is trying to reinvent itself. A number of people are on the verge being out from the organisation while others waiting to come in. Some have already left the newspaper or have been shown the door. According to reliable sources Dainik Jagran may lose some of its reporters to the rival. One of them is looking after the crime beat. While after Sanjiv Mohan Sharma moving out to Amar Ujala from Hindustan few more wickets from his earlier organisation may fall. The whole excercise is to rejunevate the newspaper which has lost a major chunk of its readership to the rival Dainik Jagran. Its tabloid Compact has also failed to make an impact and dent the readership base of i-next.

One of the prominent players of Hindi print media space Hindustan Media Ventures Limited is all set to launch its tabloid Spark. The company already publishes Hindi daily Hindustan and is part of the HT media group. As per our sources a meeting was held recetly in Delhi in a five star hotel located at Bhikaji Cama Place to frame the strategy for the launch. The first edition is supposed to be launched by mid April. This comes in the wake of expansion drive by Amar Ujala and Dainik Jagran of their tabloid newspapers Compact and i-next.

The tabloid from Amar Ujala 'Compact' is going places. Soon it will be launched from Gorakhpur and Bareli. 23 March is the tentative date for the launch of Compact from Gorakhpur. On the other hand i-next from the Jagran group is all set to launch editions from Bareli and Jamshedpur.

i next is getting ready to launch one more edition from Jharkhand. It is already present in the capital Ranchi and will launch an edition from Jamshedpur before the end of this financial year. On the other hand the tabloid newspaper from Amar Ujala has launched Shuklaganj, Unnao edition which will cater to the needs of the growing suburb of Kanpur. It also has plans to launch edition from Gorakhpur.

Dainik Jagran's tabloid newspaper i-next is recruiting for its proposed editions at Gorakhpur and Bareli. There are following vaccancies for which you can apply DNE, Chief Sub Editor, Sr. Sub Editor, Reporter, Trainee reporter and Layout Artist. You can send in your resumes at resume@inext.co.in

Four people have joined Hindustan, Kanpur of which three are from Amar Ujala, Lucknow and one is from Dainik Jagran Dinesh Mishra Amar Ujala, Lucknow Sachin Mishra Amar Ujala, Lucknow Mansi, Amar ujala, Lucknow Rakesh Pal, Dainik Jagran, Meerut

The Hindi daily, People's Samachar, is all set to expand its footprint beyond Madhya Pradesh. In the first half of 2010, the group will launch two editions - Raipur and Bilaspur - from Chattisgarh. The newspaper will have printing locations at both the places; and the machinery for this has already been procured. The Raipur edition is expected to roll out by April 2010; whereas the Bilaspur edition would come in May or June. The newspaper, which was launched in February, already has four editions: Indore, Jabalpur, Gwalior and Bhopal - the first edition launched by the group. People's Samachar is part of the Rs 1,500-crore, Bhopal-based People's Group, which has business interests in various sectors, including educational institutes, hospitals, hotels, real estate and media and entertainment. Suresh N Vijaywargia is the chairman of the group. The daily is positioned as 'Naya Zamana, Naya Akhbar' (new era, new newspaper). Its target audience includes chief wage earn...

The Times of India (TOI) continues to be the leading daily of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), followed by its foe-turned-friend, Hindustan Times (HT), with total readerships of 32.66 lakh and 32.44 lakh respectively. In fact, the gap between the two dailies has narrowed down from about 5 lakh readers in R1, 2008 to only 22,000 in the current round of IRS (R2, 2009). However, like most leading dailies in this market, both the English dailies have lost readers in the current round of IRS. While TOI has lost 1.35 lakh readers, HT is down by 86,000 readers. For TOI, it's about 4.15 lakh readers less than R1, 2008. The country's leading English daily had lost close to 3 lakh readers in the city a year ago, which it still hasn't managed to compensate for. Though it had managed to maintain a status quo by adding a marginal 4,000 readers, the current loss of readers has increased the gap. TOI's biggest loss has been in West Delhi (60,000) and South Delhi (53,00...

Indore is going to be the next destination for the compact newspaepr from the Jagran group ie, i next. Preparations have already begin and feasibility survey is over. A state of the art office is going to be built. The name of the editor doing rounds for the proposed edition is from the Amar Ujala group. Who at present is working there as deputy editor and was instrumental in the launch of Patrika's evening newspaper from Indore News Today as well as main edition.

Four people have said goodbye to inext the compact newspaper from the Jagran group. Bharat Singh who was working as Chief-sub-editor, Allahabad edition has joined Rashriya Sahara, Kanpur as Deputy News Editor. Another Chief sub Suresh Pandey who was till now working at Ranchi has also put in his papers and is going to join Peoples' Samachar at Jabalpur as News Editor. Sachin Rathore and Deepak Agarwal have resigned from the Meerut edition and have decided to quit journalism. One of them is going to work with an NGO.

Courtsey: afaqs.com Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar plans to enter new markets to strengthen the brand and expand its reach. It is poised to enter Bihar and Jharkhand, rolling out editions in the two states in the next six-eight months. As per R2 of IRS 2009, Dainik Bhaskar, the No. 2 publication of the country, has recorded a marginal decline in total readership for the second consecutive round. In the latest round, the Hindi daily lost about 5.9 lakh readers, while in R1, it had lost about 2.8 lakh readers. However, the daily had added about 33 lakh readers in R1 and R2, 2008, and has shown a growth in readership in both these rounds of IRS. Currently, its total readership stands at 3.3 crore. According to sources, the project is in the planning phase at the moment. The group is negotiating the land deals and simultaneously studying the market. It is also learnt that the project will be taken to the next level after the launch of its IPO, which is expected to come out next month. Earlier,...

The compact size newspaper from the Jagran group i-next is said to be making plans for inroads into the heart of India ie, Madhya Pradesh. Plans are already afoot and preparations have begun. However its still unclear from where it plans to enter MP. Feasibility studies are underway for Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior. Sources say Gwalior may be first on the list as it is near to Agra and desk operations may be handled by the team there. On the other hand Amar Ujala is still in a fix over its proposed expansion plans for tabloid Compact. After Shashisekhar left the first one was said to be coming from Gorakhpur. Sumant Pandey left i-next to join the group as NE for the proposed launch. Compact's Lucknow edition is also in pipeline. Recently four people have left i-next to join Amar Ujala, another four to join Prabhat Khabar and one to join Dainik Bhaskar.

Amar Ujala is said to be planning launch of its tabloid newspaper Compact from Gorakhpur in next 5-6 months. Preparations are said to be underway. Dainik Jagran is also looking at expanding presence of its tabloid i-next to NCR.

Market is showing signs of improvement and thus media industry is also trying to get out of the slumber of past few months. Restructuring excercise in major media houses is almost over. Now's the time for expansion or finding new ways to hold on the existing territory. Patrika and Bhaskar have almost completed this excercise in Rajasthan. Sources say now Patrika may now look towards expansion in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. Gwalior and Raipur editions are said to be in the pipeline. People's group has set 31 July as the launch date of its Indore edition. Jabalpur may follow afterwards. Dainik Jagran has already launched its national edition. I-next from the same group is looking towards launching Noida and Gurgaon editions. Hindustan has almost completed the recruitment for its upcoming Bareli edition and Gorakhpur will follow afterwards. Prabhat Khabar has relaunched its Patna edition and is now looking towards improving its existing editions in Jharkhand. Smaller players l...

hindimedia1@gmail.com Hindi print media space will very soon be witness to tabloid war among the major newspaper groups. Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala are already in the fray with i-next and compact. Dainik Bhaskar after the launch of Patrika from Bhopal has started publication of DB Gold. Ajay Agarwal who broke away from Amar Ujala is now spearheding the assault in the western Uttar Pradesh with his own tabloid DLA. He is all set to enter newer territories including editions from Lucknow and Kanpur. Hindustan and Rajasthan Patrika are the two major groups who have kept away from this war and were busy expanding into newer areas with their broadsheet products. However Hindustan after the launch of i-next from Patna and the proposed launch from Ranchi is mulling over the idea of launching a tabloid, which may be named, Spark. Dainik Jagran’s tabloid i-next has made its presence felt in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar. At present it is being published simultaneously from Kanpur, Luck...

This news appeared first at www.exchange4media.com © exchange4media 2008 The Hindi newspaper space is becoming exciting and competitive. While on the one hand, existing players are venturing into newer markets, new players are also entering the fray. The increasing competition is resulting in an inevitable price war. The latest to witness a price war is Dehradun, Uttarakhand, where Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagran and Hindustan have reduced their rates by Re 1. While Amar Ujala and Dainik Jagran reduced their rates from Rs 3 to Rs 2 from June 6 onwards, Hindustan followed a day later, reducing its rate also from Rs 3 to Rs 2. Giving the reason for reducing the rate, Sunil Mutreja, President-Marketing, Amar Ujala, said, “It is an attempt to expand the market and increase print penetration in Uttarakhand. Dehradun today has a circulation of 77-80 lakh publications in all, and has the potential for the circulation to go up to 150 lakh. Amar Ujala will benefit the best with the price cut as we ar...