Dainik Bhaskar sees a jump of 74,000 copies in ABC January-June 2003

Officials at the Bhaskar group, which prints and publishes Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar, have reason to cheer. The flagship brand has seen an increase in circulation to the tune of 74,378 copies across four states, namely, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Haryana for the period of January to June 2003, taking its overall circulation in this region to 11.96 lakh copies from the previous 11.21 lakh copies for the period of July to December 2002. (Source: ABC)

Increase in circulation has been registered for the Indore edition, which jumped from 1.76 lakh copies in July-December 2002 to 1.90 lakh copies for the current period. Gwalior has seen a hike of 13,412 copies, jumping from 50,943 copies in the earlier period of July to December 2002 to 64,355 copies in the current one, Raipur has jumped from 97,253 copies to 1.09 lakh copies, Jaipur has jumped from 3.27 lakh copies to 3.43 lakh copies, Jodhpur's circulation stands at 1.01 lakh copies from the previous 98,692 copies, Udaipur's circulation stands at 73,041 copies, up from 70,381 copies in the period between July-December 2002.

Among other centres, Bikaner (including Ganganagar) stands at 52,033 copies from 49,919 copies in July-December 2002, Kota stands at 56,145 copies, up from the previous 52,550 copies while the Panipat and Hissar editions in Haryana have clocked circulation figures of 1.22 lakh and 83,497 copies respectively, implying a jump of 1,877 and 6,845 copies from the previous period when circulation stood at 1.20 lakh and 76,652 copies respectively.

According to Anil Dhupar, senior vice-president, marketing, Bhaskar group, this growth in circulation is due to an overall improvement in editorial quality with emphasis on accurate and objective news reports, increase in the number of supplements and colour pages as well as general improvement in production quality. "Cosmetic as well as content changes have resulted in an overall increase in circulation," he says.

Meanwhile, arch rivals Rajasthan Patrika and Dainik Jagran have also registered growth with Patrika, for instance, seeing a hike in circulation in Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bangalore, Bhilwara, Bikaner, Ganganagar, Kota and Sikar. Patrika's circulation fell marginally in Jaipur with the current figure standing at 1.70 lakh copies to the previous figure of 1.71 lakh copies in the period of July to December 2002. Its Ahmedabad edition clocked a modest figure of 17,936 copies.

For Jagran, growth has primarily come from the centres of Jalandhar, Agra, Gorakhpur and Varanasi with circulation for the four as follows: Jalandhar: 1.60 lakh copies as against 1.34 lakh copies for July-December 2002, Agra: 1.33 lakh copies as against 1.18 lakh copies for the earlier period, Gorakhpur: 89,863 copies as against 84,431 copies for July-December 2002 and Varanasi: 1.46 lakh copies as against 1.40 lakh copies for the earlier period of July-December 2002.

According to Vikas Joshi, general manager, Dainik Jagran, Mumbai, the key focus area for the group is the state of Punjab where the Jalandhar edition has seen a significant jump in circulation over the last one year. "We moved from 75,641 copies in January-June 2002 to 1.34 lakh copies in July-December 2002 to 1.60 lakh copies in the current period," he says. "The upswing is clearly there and we intend capitalising on it with more editions."

In the pipeline is a new edition for Ludhiana, adding to its current list of 23, spread across eight states including Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Haryana and Punjab.

In the recent past, the group launched five editions including three in Jharkhand (Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad), one in Bihar (Bhagalpur) and one in Haryana (Panipat). "With such a wide spread, it is difficult to have brand development activities across all editions. Hence, the strategy is to have a focused presence in some areas especially where there is scope for growth and some kind of promotional push across all the other centres," adds Joshi. © 2003 agencyfaqs!