The way we operate,we go all out, or wejust don't.

Last month, the National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) declared Dainik Bhaskar, the Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh)-based Hindi daily, the country's largest read daily. Announcing the findings of NRS 2001, its largest ever study comprising 2,12,000 respondents, the NRSC recorded Bhaskar's readership at 119,43,000, way ahead of 74,55,000 (No 5) in NRS 2000. This is the first time that Dainik Bhaskar has conclusively emerged as India's No 1 daily across both the readership studies, the IRS (112,67,000 readers) and the NRS. Though over half-a-decade old, the paper has grown to over 19 editions across five states and one Union Territory in the last five years. It is in the last three years or so that it has caught the industry's eye.

agencyfaqs! caught up with Girish Agarwal, director, Dainik Bhaskar, to understand the once-conservative media group's exponential growth. In a candid three-hour-long conversation with Iqbal Singh, Agarwal spoke on the paper's origins, the first victory outside its home state, the learnings, the failings, and the road ahead

Edited Excerpts

It means a lot. Last year we were No 1 in the IRS and No 5 in the NRS. We were pretty depressed. But we realised that the NRS had some part on the rural readership that was not matching the IRS because of some sample sizes or other issues. The figures on the rural side were not very encouraging. But this year the NRS has included Haryana and Chandigarh, because of which our readership has come on top.

Secondly, when we made a statement on the IRS, people would always ask us, 'But what about the NRS?' That is solved now.

If you talk revenues, then there is hardly any difference. That feeling of being No 1 has not added to revenues, but it has added to the goodwill, the image. There has given weight to the visiting cards of all our employees now, but it does not add that same weight to revenues.

It was started in the 1950s. Till 1978 it was like one of the family businesses. Dainik Bhaskar editions came out from Bhopal, Gwalior, Ujjain and Jhansi. Surprisingly, Gwalior was the bread-winner, not Bhopal. In 1978, my father came into the main business as a result of an internal division of the family business, and we decided to move on. We relaunched the Bhopal edition. All newspapers then were working on sheet-fed machinery; we became the first paper to get into web offset printing in Bhopal. Soon, we became No 1, beating Navabharat.

In 1983 we decided to launch the Indore edition while closing Ujjain. That is, when Bhaskar started recognising the potential of Madhya Pradesh. It was launched with 30,000 copies in 1983. By 1990, we were a strong No 2 in MP. In 1992, we were No 1 in MP as per reports. We became further strong by 1996.

Yes, the non-Chhatisgarh editions were the group's strong focus. We did launch the Raipur and Bilaspur editions in 1990 and 1992 respectively, but only to register our presence. Also, the management then thought there wasn't enough potential in Chhatisgarh.

The focus was always Bhopal, Gwalior and Indore. It was in 1995 that we decided to move beyond that region. The first option, for any Hindi newspaper, was Uttar Pradesh. Our chairman, my father Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, visited Rajasthan. We didn't know anybody. We were surprised - (Rajasthan) Patrika was simply huge. This was a market where Bennett, Coleman's Navabharat Times had shut down its edition. Everybody we met was anything but encouraging. When I visited some of my friends in Jaipur, I realised Patrika was the king.

We made a plan for Jaipur. It was our first venture outside. We were very excited. We said, let's start with a target of 50,000 copies. We were selling around 1,10,000 copies in Indore then. Patrika was selling around 1,80,000 copies of the Jaipur edition.

It was a monopolistic situation, just like we faced with Nayi Duniya in Indore. If we could make even a significant dent in the market, at worse we could become a No 2. UP always had No 1 and No 2, and a lot of accompanying clutter. Rajasthan was a total Hindi belt. We also studied why Navabharat Times had closed down and realised that it was a problem of the management and the product, not the market.

When we did 'bhoomi pujan' in January 1996 and took allotment of the land, even the government officer made us wait and think over it all over again. We were giving him a draft and he was ensuring that we don't come back for a refund. He said 'we will forfeit this money'. In a record time of 10 months, we had the whole building through. Everything was very well calculated, planned to the last detail. But the expenses were huge, and as it unfolded, they kept increasing. We had started with a projection of 50,000 copies; so we thought one machine would be enough. By April we thought let's do pre-launch estimates, not post-launch. That was never the norm in the industry. You started with an edition and then grew it gradually as the demand rose. So we thought, let's do a pre-launch survey.

A lot of it came from 'The Making of USA Today'. Sudhir, my elder brother and MD of our company, had read about it and he admired how the paper had everything planned, and even a launch date announced six months before the actual launch. We followed the same strategy. In Jaipur, we decided in April that we would launch in December. By September we had announced even the launch date - December 19, 1996.

Targeting 50,000 copies, we started the survey with 50,000 households, but then said, let's increase it. Expecting even a 50 per cent response, we took the sample up to 70,000, and then said let's get all Patrika readers in Jaipur city (about 90,000). Then we hiked that further to all households in Jaipur. It came to about 2 lakh. One key benefit was that we saw our survey as a brand-building exercise.

Starting in July, we did two rounds. The first round was an ice-breaker, getting to know people, and their state of satisfaction with Patrika. The results shocked all of us. Ninety five per cent of the people in Jaipur were looking for an option and 78 per cent said that their current paper was biased. Among their requirements, they wanted more city news. In the survey, our trump card was a handbook which was a kind of Jaipur Yellow Pages. Very specific, it led to talks in the city for its uniqueness. Our teaser hoarding campaigns in Jaipur were equally talked about.

All that made us very confident and our chairman said, let's talk of one lakh copies. By August we were thinking of sharing the entire launch strategy with the people in the industry, on one lakh plus copies.

By September we started our second round - order booking. We went back to the same households, told them the summary of the feedback we had collected and the kind of paper we were coming out with. When it came to advance bookings, the customer said he will inform the hawker. But we wanted some kind of assurance. So we went with a guarantee bond. No monies involved. The customer just signed it, kept two foils with him, gave us one, and one to the hawker the next day to start Bhaskar from December.

There was another advantage. We neutralised the hawker. If you have seen, in all monopolistic markets, the leader influences the hawker. And these tend to be cash-and-carry businesses. If he touches a competitor's new paper, he can be threatened to lose existing business. We never approached him. If the customer gave him the counterfoil of the guarantee bond, he would give it to us, along with money from his pocket, and we gave him the paper. We had also erected a parallel distribution team in case the hawker system did not work.

The paper was priced at Rs 2. We told the consumer, if he signed up before launch, we give the paper for Rs 1.50 for six months. Patrika was selling at Rs 2.25. Once we began getting the orders, we were moving close to 1,50,000 copies. A third machine was bought overnight, for a premium. We finally launched with 1,72,000 copies, all paid, becoming No 1 from day one. Five days later, December 25, Patrika reduced the cover price from Rs 2.25 to Rs 1.50. That again helped us. Now, to buy two newspapers, all a customer had to do was pay only 75 paise more. It helped duplication, and our sales. We touched 2 lakh.

That must have come from media planners and those who don't read our paper. You tell me: How is it that we have grown after the initial trial periods? We did launch our Jaipur edition with 1,72,000 copies but no amount of marketing can sell a bad product continuously. But yes, we have not spoken about our content. For the advertising fraternity, the fight was on numbers. Recently, we have, as a policy, decided to inform people on content.

If you go back to Jaipur, and the whole Rajasthan episode, why we succeeded was due to our product. We realised our product was far better than Patrika. We were colour, theirs was black-and-white, we had supplements, while they hardly had any, the production quality, the layout, it was all superior. Which is why I was always amused when people, so much senior to me, said, 'it's difficult to change reading habits'. Why can't you change a paper when you can change everything else?

That is, in fact, what gave us confidence to launch in Ajmer in April 1997. Jodhpur was a test in August because, by then, Patrika had discounted on all Rajasthan editions. It had also increased its supplements. So this time, more than ever, the fight was on quality. Soon, we were in Bikaner, then Udaipur (1998) and by 1999, in Kota. We had captured Rajasthan.

We had tasted blood (success), to be honest. We started thinking about Punjab. UP was still a clutter. Punjab was a huge market and Punjab Kesri was huge. There was no one else. We were thinking of a Jalandhar edition in 1999. We then decided on Chandigarh, for similar market reasons. Also in terms of perception, it was the gateway of Punjab. And we thought we will cater to Haryana also.

But when we started work, all three came across as different places. Punjab had to be dealt with separately, so was Haryana. Sudhir, along with Pawan, our director, made a tour of Haryana and came with the same feedback. So we said, let's move on Haryana also, and begin with Panipat and Hisar. So last year, we launched three editions - two in Haryana and one in Chandigarh. We were thinking of covering Himachal with the Chandigarh edition but due to the distance, we restricted distribution to Simla only. Punjab is the next market now.

At the same time, we have been consolidating in all markets we are in. Consolidation in terms of quality, systems and resources so that the system could run on its own, even when we come out of it. Because of the newsprint price hike, the expansion into Punjab has been delayed.

As detailed last year, we want to be a media group of recognition worldwide in the next five to 10 years. I may operate out of India, but our systems, writing style, operations - they need to be world class. Circulation is certainly a big parameter. Because what you can be known for worldwide is your size. We are also looking at the number of markets. Today we have five states and one Union Territory.

We got into the cable network business two years back in Jaipur. We were the first to operate through fiber-optic, networking the whole of Jaipur. We have 1,20,000 connections in town. We wanted to get into cable in a big way. We have cable properties in Bhopal and Indore too, but co-axial. But with the kind of investments we have put in Jaipur, for instance, the returns are still not coming.

We pitched for FM Radio for six-seven centers. But the bidding was going much beyond the feasibility point. So we withdrew. We are bidding for a JV now. One can always tie up later for an alliance in FM.

We are into some other industries also - solvents, hotels, printing, textiles (since 1986).

We closed National Mail last year. It was launched in 1992. We realised that it was a Bhopal-based paper. We weren't growing in English the way we were growing in Hindi. Until and unless you have an editorial and marketing network across the country, it's difficult to run a newspaper. It was doing 18,000 copies in Bhopal. I am into the communications business, and the medium is Hindi, till the time my market knows Hindi.

No, the price war was over two years back. The price now varies between Rs 2 and Rs 2.50 depending on the day of the week. But it is comfortable for me. I mean, yes, it can be much better, but it's ok. Right now, the profit margin is not thick. Battles do go on every now and then, like recently both Patrika and Bhaskar launched a free-chair scheme with subscriptions. That does add to expenditure.

The increase in newsprint and the cost factor are holding back our expansion. Because the way we operate, we go all out, or we just don't. Which is why we deferred the Chhatisgarh revamp for a year (done last June). But when we went to Chhatisgarh, we launched the chair-scheme recently. It has put me down by a straight Rs 1.5 crore in one shot but we have gained huge circulation, in practically no time. We have to keep going ahead. This year, advertising revenues have not grown wonderfully. The last six months have been bad. So we have to wait for the market to grow.

The sad part is that the regional press has still not been able to create an impact. The growth that the regional press has been showing is much, much higher. It is huge. We haven't been able to portray it. None of the regional players is strong in the two key markets of Delhi and Mumbai. In Calcutta, a guy still values the regional press because he feels the ABP.

But English is the first priority in print. When you can put monies in Hindi channels like Zee, Sony and STAR, it's clear that it is not to do with the language, but with markets. And it is the four big metros that are always looked at, nothing else.

English continues to enjoy the premium but it must be said that in the last six years everybody has woken up and is working hard. Today language publications are moving toward commanding that premium … just look at the Malayala Manorama, Eenadu or even Jagran.

We are not fighting television head-on because fortunately for us, our markets are not very TV-heavy, like, say, the south. There are no particular regional channels for these markets only. Otherwise, I would have had a real problem. In my markets, it is still Zee, Sony, STAR. TV is eating into the overall ad pie anyway. When an advertiser has budgeted for TV and made a Rs 30-lakh film, he has to run it. Only then you look at what monies are left and come to print.

We have noticed in the last few months that the threshold level on TV has gone up on cost. Earlier, one crore rupees would have given you some GRPs on a particular channel, but today the advertiser knows that to be on the safe side, he has to be seen on a particular programme where the cost is higher. So going head-on with TV wasn't working in some cases, and we tried these schemes.

Recently, we evaluated one idea - why can't we take money off magazines? I am offering better reach than the kind of reach that magazines offer. It is a beginning but we need to take it seriously.

After reading the Bombay Times, I hardly need to read a film magazine. I am sure that is the case with a lot of readers. There are only some categories of magazines, like special-interest, that have shown a growth, if you remember the latest NRS figures. A separate study done by NRS shows that supplements in vernaculars are read more than even the main newspapers. So I am working on my film magazine (supplement) -- Navrang, for instance - so that people don't have to read any other film magazine. I firmly believe that my film magazine is read more than my main paper among a particular segment. I have four magazines supplements now - Navrang (edited by Mahesh Bhatt), Rasrang (Sunday supplement), Madhurima (women's magazine) and Bal Bhaskar (for kids).

The new rate card came on July 1. My rates are very straight. When we were going through Mastermind, we thought it was a very smart way to support weaker editions. The name is very apt. It has been thought through very well. But I don't have any weak editions. So I charge for markets. So if I charge for Indore, Bhopal and Gwalior, Bilaspur is almost an add-on. It is dependent solely on market strength. Three things have been kept in mind while designing the rate card: what the market can take (what the advertiser will pay for that market), feasibility at our end, and no extra padding. In MP, for instance, my rate was once less than the No 2 because we knew the market could not take it.

We as a group believe that our reader is our mai-baap. To give you an example, in 1984 we spoke against the Government in Bhopal. The Government denied us advertising for some time. It came back in 1987 and again stopped all Government advertising for one-and-a-half years. But it was very clear, we cannot bend. In 1990, again the Government stopped advertising for six months. When we went to Jaipur, the Government would have definitely helped us had we asked for. But I got Government advertising in Jaipur only two years after launch.

When we do advertising innovations for marketers, we make sure that our readers enjoy whatever we do. The advertiser is advertising to get the reader's attention. If we end up bugging him, he will hate our product. And if I promise the marketer help in editorial coverage, what does a reader lose? I am only putting news that informs a reader. I am not influencing anything. It is like any other press release. I see no harm in that.