By Anoop Chugh
Media

Jagran and Bhaskar fight it out for Patiala peg

The Bhaskar Group owned Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar, launched its Patiala edition a day after the Dainik Jagran launch its edition in the city

The battle between Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar for Punjab has now moved to Patiala, where the two Hindi national dailies have launched new editions within a day of each other.

The country’s largest selling daily, Dainik Jagran, took its edition count up to four in Punjab with the launch of its Patiala edition on Friday, December 21. Dainik Bhaskar, the number two daily in the country, launched its Patiala edition a day later; this is its fourth edition, too, in Punjab.

Jagran and Bhaskar fight it out for Patiala peg
Although no official figures are available on the print run of the two editions, industry insiders put the figure at 30,000. As per the figures provided by Dainik Jagran, it has a print run of 325,000 for all its Punjab editions, which include Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. Meanwhile, Bhaskar isn’t talking numbers at all because it is planning an IPO and has already filed the draft red herring prospectus.
Jagran and Bhaskar fight it out for Patiala peg
“Bhaskar seem to have hurriedly decided to launch the Patiala edition once Jagran’s Patiala edition was revealed,” says a media observer.

This isn’t the first time the two newspapers are having a face-off in Punjab – last year, they launched their Amritsar editions within a month of each other. The Jagran Group has had a presence in Punjab since 1999, when it launched its first edition in Jalandhar. The second edition – in Ludhiana – was launched in 2004. Bhaskar entered Punjab only in late 2006, when it launched its Jalandhar and Amritsar editions, followed by Ludhiana and now Patiala.

“We were nine editions strong in PCH (Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana) last year, and this is our 10th edition in the region, which is very important for us. So, it is Jagran which is trailing us in the region and not the other way round,” says a senior Bhaskar Group executive on condition of anonymity.

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