NaiDunia Media announces national edition of its daily

The Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh based media house, NaiDunia Media, has sounded the war cry with the slogan, 'Ab Dilli Dur Nahin.' The company has announced that it will roll out the Delhi edition of its newspaper, NaiDunia, which is currently one of the leading players in Central India.

Besides going national with the daily newspaper, it will also launch a weekly newspaper and magazine combo, Sunday NaiDunia, in nine state capitals. The markets targeted by Sunday NaiDunia are Lucknow, Dehradun, Patna, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhopal, Raipur and Mumbai.

Talking to afaqs!, Vinay Chhajlani, chief executive officer, NaiDunia Media, says, "The Delhi Hindi market has only two major national players, Navbharat Times and Hindustan Times. Besides these two, there are other regional players like Punjab Kesari and Jansatta. Our reading of the market shows that there is place for another player, when it comes to readers or advertisers. We are going to ensure that our Delhi edition, both in terms of content and style, turns out to be a distinct product, bereft of the regional flavour of the NaiDunia editions in the regional markets."

The newspaper-magazine combo will comprise 16 pages of newspaper content and a 48 page magazine, which will serve as a source of indepth analysis of news and happenings, along with providing interesting write-ups on every possible subject.

The Sunday NaiDunia will be in direct competition with the parent brand, NaiDunia, in markets such as Bhopal and Raipur. Clearing doubts over editorial or advertising conflicts arising in certain markets, Chhajlani explains, "There is a lot of business out there in the media, provided your product is targeted at a well defined, segmented market (inclusive of readers and advertisers). From being monthly magazines, both Outlook and India Today have gone local over a period of time. We speculated a lot about having our own brands competing with each other in certain markets. But then, sensing the quality of the product and accepting the fact that besides us, there would be some x, y, z brand to compete against, we decided to go ahead with our plans to publish Sunday NaiDunia from nine centres."

The Delhi editions of both NaiDunia and Sunday NaiDunia will attract advertisers from sectors such as corporate players, banking, finance, FMCG, automobiles, educational institutes and fashion and lifestyle brands. Moreover, “Sunday NaiDunia has a carry over value to it, having a longer shelf life, and will prove worth the advertisers' money because we believe that readers will start with it on Sunday and the comprehensive, qualitative content will see them through, say, another three days,” says Chhajlani.

In Delhi, NaiDunia will debut with a print run of one lakh copies and Sunday NaiDunia will see a print run of two lakh copies across the nine centres. Chhajlani refused to reveal the price of the daily and weekly offerings.

Alok Mehta has been appointed chief editor for the new publications.