Mint on stands in Kolkata today

Mint, the English business daily from HT Media, hit the stands in Kolkata today. The edition is Mint's sixth after Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Pune.

The Berliner sized paper, according to Vivek Khanna, publisher and business head, Mint, will have an initial print run of 10,000 copies in Kolkata, and have an introductory cover price of Rs 3. The cover price is at par with the Delhi edition. Meanwhile, the Mumbai and Bengaluru editions of Mint sell at cover prices of Rs 2 and Rs 3.50 respectively.

The Kolkata edition, which targets the key business and policy leaders in line with its national reader profile, hopes to attract premium advertisers from the region. “The edition, besides national stories and content from our partner, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), will have news from the northeast as well,” says Khanna.

Mint is using print, outdoors and below-the-line activities to reach out to its target group. It will also have an event on June 10 to debate ‘How the potential of the East can be unleashed’. The panellists include business leaders from both public and private sectors.

Mint will compete with the Kolkata editions of The Economic Times and Business Standard, which, as per ABC (July-December, 2008), have an average circulation of 79,074 and 16,982 respectively.

Mint claims to have more than two lakh readers nationally. “As per IRS '09, Mint has a total readership of 1.75 lakh in Delhi and Mumbai editions,” says Khanna.

Rajiv Verma, chief executive officer, HT Media, says, “The readership numbers validate our belief that there is a market for unbiased, jargon-free reporting and analysis in the business news domain, across formats. With the launch of Mint in Kolkata, we hope to bring to the readers in the city the same clarity that the rest of the country has so overwhelmingly embraced.”

For the record, besides WSJ, Mint has a content sharing tie up with CNBC-TV18 as well.