DLA is launched in Meerut

DLA, the Agra-based Hindi afternoon tabloid daily, has been launched in Meerut with a claimed print run of around 45,000 copies. Priced at Rs 1.50, the Meerut edition is a 20-page all colour compact daily and the first daily from the region in the afternoon segment.

Ajay Agarwal, managing partner, DLA, says, “The response for DLA in other cities is good. DLA is not bought so much by commuters or shopkeepers as by readers in the average households of Meerut. There wasn’t any afternoon daily in the region, hence no distribution network. We had to recruit fresh distributors by drawing people from the cable distribution network, who have entry into households.”

This is the daily’s third new edition in the 11 months since its launch in Agra in March 2007. Earlier this year, it launched its Ghaziabad edition on January 27, with a claimed launch print run of 65,000 copies.

Prior to its launch in Ghaziabad and Meerut, the daily carried out an extensive door to door personal contact campaign. It has installed more than 150 out of home display boards in the areas in and around Ghaziabad, Hapur, Modi Nagar and Meerut.

The daily has a printing tie-up with HT Media Ltd (HTML), a subsidiary of The Hindustan Times Ltd, to print its Ghaziabad and Meerut editions. Similarly, DLA prints Hindustan for HTML in Agra.

Agarwal says, “Unlike the morning segment, in which distribution gets over in two to three hours, DLA enjoys a bigger sales bandwidth. It continues to sell well into the evening. This is why more and more people have joined its ever-growing distribution force.”

DLA also has a morning tabloid in English called DLA AM, published daily from Agra. DLA AM was launched in August 2007 and has a print order of more than 20,000 copies. For the record, DLA is the splinter group of the Amar Ujala Group.