Rajkot is the next destination for Divya Bhaskar

With a new edition from Rajkot and after acquiring the Saurashtra Samachar, the publication will now have a presence in entire Gujarat

Bhaskar Group's Gujarati daily, Divya Bhaskar will launch another edition from Rajkot. Confirming this, Girish Agarwal, director - marketing, Bhaskar Group said, “The new edition will be launched on February 12.” With this, Divya Bhaskar will have the fifth main edition in the state. The Rajkot edition will be launched with an initial print run of 52,000.

At present, Divya Bhaskar has three main editions from Ahmedabad, Surat and Baroda. The Baroda edition was launched on September 11, 2004 with an initial print run of 2.5 lakh copies. In addition, after the publication recently acquired Saurashtra Samachar in a Rs 7-crore deal, its requirement to cover Bhavnagar and the Saurashtra region was met. The publication also spent an additional Rs 3-4 crore on revamping the infrastructure and printing machines of Saurashtra Samachar.

Apart from these, the publication has 17 district editions from Gandhinagar, Anand, Nadiad, Mehsana, Himmatnagar, Palanpur, Patan, Surendranagar, Surat, Valsad, Vapi, Navsari, Panchmahal, Dahod, Bharuch, Narmada and Amreli.

Talking about the need for a Rajkot edition, Sanjeev Kotnala, senior general manger - brand, Bhaskar Group says, “Divya Bhaskar, after taking over Saurastra Samachar and with its other three main editions of Ahmedabad, Surat and Baroda, has been providing a platform for the media planners and marketers to cater to the whole of Gujarat. But, the absence of a main edition from Rajkot created a perceptual gap. Now with this new edition, we hope to fill up this gap and provide a package for whole of Gujarat.”

As per a survey done by Ernst and Young (E&Y), the net paid sales for Divya Bhaskar is around 11.31 lakh copies in Ahmedabad, Surat and Baroda. E&Y had carried out a test on the processes followed by the management in calculating the circulation figure, and subsequently certified it. The Saurashtra Samachar sells around 42,375 copies from Bhavnagar. (As per ABC JJ 03). As per IRS round 2, 2003-04, the total readership of Divya Bhaskar in Gujarat is 22.15 lakhs. Out of which, 10.11 lakhs is in Ahmedabad.

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com