Hindi Media

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...

According to the current round of Indian Readership Survey (IRS) -- Round 2 (R2) 2009 -- The Times of India (TOI) continues to rule the financial capital of India across languages, with a total readership of 24.91 lakh. However, the country's largest English daily has seen a marginal decline in readership in Mumbai, which has been a TOI stronghold. TOI continues to lead across three reporting centres of Greater Mumbai -- Mumbai City, Western Suburb and Eastern Suburb. In Navi Mumbai, however, TOI is the No. 2 player. In the previous round, Marathi daily, Navakal was the leading newspaper in Eastern Suburb; TOI has taken that position in the current round. TOI's sister publication, Maharashtra Times also continues to hold the No. 2 rank in the city, though it has also marginally lost readers -- 59,000 readers -- from the previous round. Like most Marathi dailies, Navi Mumbai continues to be the biggest market for Maharashtra Times; but it's in this market that it has lost ar...

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...

Hindi newspaper space is getting more and more crowded with each passing day. Hindustan is slated to launch three more editions from Chandigarh, Allahabad and Dehradun . Sources in Allahabad say the preparations are on and edition will be launched sometime in May. Amar Ujala is said to be eyeing Bhopal. Madhya Pradesh based Hindi daily Raj Express is getting ready for the launch of Jabalpur and Gwalior editions as well as Hindi news channel in the month of July. Indore based Hindi newspaper Nai Dunia is all set to revamp its Bhopal edition and give it a new look. After its initial success in Jaipur Rajasthan Patrika is preparing to launch another edition of Daily News from Bhopal. Dainik Jagran is busy working out the nitty and gritty of launching three more editions of its tabloid I-next from Gorakhpur , Patna and Ranchi . The rumour mills in Jaipur suggest that the city may see the launch of I-next first and Dainik Jagran later. The talks of a possible tie-up between Ja...