Deccan Chronicle to generate Rs 60 crore from Chennai edition

“We will be dumb to sell a lakh of copies as 'raddi',” says PK Iyer, executive director, Deccan Chronicle Holdings. He was reacting to the agencyfaqs! report that quoted The Hindu's joint managing director N Murali as saying the Deccan Chronicle was selling only 15,000-20,000 copies in Chennai and the rest being sold as scrap.

Iyer clarifies. “Who will buy more than a lakh of copies of newspaper as raddi (scrap) every day? In fact, we do not need to prove anything to anybody. The picture will be crystal-clear after we receive the ABC certificate,” he says.

Media planners incidentally say that 'raddi' economics is a common practice among newly launched newspapers in order to quote higher numbers in the ABC certificate.”

“The Hindu group is, in fact, in a better position to understand the raddi economics as they themselves have a cover price of Re 1 in Hyderabad, ” Iyer added.

“We are sure we will generate Rs 50-60 crore in this financial year from the Chennai edition,” Iyer says, while commenting on the revenue plans for the company. “Remember, we are a public limited company and cannot make baseless predictions unlike some of our competitors.”

He claims that 50 per cent (Rs 25-30 crore) of the total revenue will come from Chennai's local market. He says, “Our CPTs (cost per thousand) are much cheaper in comparison to The Hindu. While The Hindu sells at a rate of Rs 2,000- Rs 2500 per column centimeter for local advertisers, our rates are only Rs 900 per cc. So those advertisers, who couldn't make it to The Hindu due to its high price, are preferring Deccan Chronicle in the Chennai market.”

He also said that add-ons are logical, as regular national advertisers of Deccan Chronicle's Hyderabad edition are keen to use the Chennai edition to reach out to the consumers in this market.

Iyer is hopeful that within an year, Deccan Chronicle will be selling around 2 lakh copies. © 2005 agencyfaqs!