Print media on a roll in the South

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Chennai, New Delhi, Apr 16: The battle for the Rs 1,000-crore print media advertisement market in Chennai has just got hotter with the launch of the financial daily -- Financial Chronicle -- from the Deccan Chronicle group on Wednesday. The paper was also launched simultaneously in Hyderabad. Earlier in the week, the Times of India (ToI) also launched its edition in the city.

The newest of the business dailies, however, chose to come out in white newsprint rather than the trademark salmon pink of most of the financial dailies other than BusinessLine. According to reports, the Deccan Chronicle management feels there is growing demand for financial dailies in the South Indian market.

With the country’s economy witnessing a boom, business news is growing increasingly important. A stock market crash makes for the front-page headlines in a general interest newspaper. Deccan Chronicle has a circulation of 6,49,469 copies in Anantapur, Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Nellore, Rajahmundry, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam, as of January-June 2007, according to ABC. The Chennai edition of the newspaper has 2,98,822 circulating copies for the same period. The publication claims that its circulation has gone up to 10,03,171 copies for July-December 2007, as per ABC.

Meanwhile, ToI is targeting the younger generation to drive up its circulation and readership reach in the city. ToI insiders claim that the paper has notched a pre-launch paid annual subscription of close to 2 lakh copies through its invitation price offer. This is the same strategy that Deccan Chronicle followed when it hit the Chennai stands more than a year ago.

But in the clash of the titans, the Kasturi Group promoted The Hindu blinked first by dropping the price of the newspaper from Rs 3.25 to Rs 2.50 on weekdays. So far, The Hindu has been the leading newspaper in the city as well as in the state. Media analysts see The Hindu’s reaction to the launch of ToI not as a knee jerk reaction but a well planned move to defend its turf. The Hindu also banks on its `loyal’ readers, who have been reading the newspaper for generations.