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Navbharat Times gets hyper local with four NCR editions
The Hindi daily rolls out two editions for Faridabad and Ghaziabad and plans to launch two editions for Noida and Gurgaon in the next one month
Establishing itself as a community newspaper, Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd’s Hindi language newspaper, Navbharat Times (NBT), has come out with Faridabad and Ghaziabad editions and will soon launch two more new editions in Noida and Gurgaon. The four editions will carry an exclusive eight page supplement carrying local news, as the four satellite towns continue to gain more and more importance commercially.
“We have observed that four NCR cities are being grossly ignored by most publications as there is not much news on the local content there. We assume that it’s part of the NCR region, so it hardly requires any separate edition. But that’s not the case, as the four towns have a huge population that we have to cater to and, through our separate editions, we aim to achieve that,” says Rahul Kansal, brand director, TOI Group.
The four editions are called NBT Faridabad, NBT Ghaziabad, NBT Noida and NBT Gurgaon. The newspaper is targeting SEC AB through them. “We don’t have a concept of micro news in India as we mostly cover macro news. Through this initiative, we intend to promote micro news, which the local population will be more interested in reading. We are going hyper local,” says Kansal.
“Navbharat Times is tightly focussed on Delhi, but the new editions will provide enhanced metro coverage. Most people have some connection to Delhi, which they can relate to either in terms of aspirations, relations, or professional needs. The eight pages will try to take a solution providing approach to different local issues,” says Aman Nayar, brand manager, TOI Group.
To promote the two new products, the newspaper has organised a Daler Mehndi concert in Ghaziabad and a Sukhbir concert in Faridabad along with outdoor advertisements.
Nayar says, “Unlike other newspapers, which, in the name of local content, distribute a supplement once a week, we are not just launching supplements for the four cities, but also tailoring the content in the main newspaper as per the needs of the area.”