"It is a good time to invest": Arun Anant, CEO, Kasturi & Sons

It is a momentous occasion for The Hindu group. A few days from now, it will enter the regional market with a Tamil daily. Apart from its flagship English newspaper, its stable of publications includes the business newspaper, Business Line, plus a couple of English magazines. The fact that it has stuck to English suggests that the group's ambitions have been national rather than regional.

The Tamil language daily market, advertising and circulation together, is estimated at Rs 1,500 crore. The new Tamil daily from The Hindu will be launched with a print run of six lakh copies from four centres: Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli. The price will be in the range of Rs 4-5 and it will compete with a bunch of established brands.

afaqs! spoke to Arun Anant, CEO, Kasturi & Sons on why the choice of a Tamil daily - and why now. Excerpts:

Edited Excerpts

I am not sure that we were always defined as such and if we were, I think it was by default. It was never a strategic decision to be an English language group. Now the regional languages are growing very well and, secondly, smaller towns are growing in terms of literacy, readership and consumption. The regional market is getting very attractive.

We had evaluated this proposition in the past but did not proceed for some reason or the other. There is a contrary point of view that the best time to make an investment is when the market is down. People will invest in a good market only when those are high capex projects. Here we are talking about a business we are already in. We only need the working capital. For the rest, we are using a lot of our existing resources. Barring the editorial team, which requires working capital, we are well equipped to do the rest. So, we think it is a good time to invest.

We will launch the daily in a broadsheet format. Internationally, people pick up a paper on the way to work, and read it while travelling but in India, it is dropped into your home. Therefore, that aspect of convenience (with a smaller size) is relevant but not dominant in its importance.

For some reason, broadsheets are seen as more credible than tabloids. And the myth continues. It's because of the genesis of the products which were tabloids vis-a-vis broadsheets. It made sense for us to launch a Tamil daily in a broadsheet format so that we don't have to fight a perception battle.

Yes, we are very strong in the South and that needs to be leveraged. The brand name, distribution and reach out to the advertisers are stronger. Our real estate and printing machines are more in this region, so it was easier to expand our markets in the South as against growing outside.

The first is to launch with a bang with such a large circulation. The second is to get the advertising revenue going soon. The third challenge is to render the Tamil product with a solid editorial differential from other newspapers, and yet carry forward The Hindu's editorial values.

Not at this point.

We are simultaneously launching the digital product. We believe that our digital product will be consumed internationally as there is a large Tamil diaspora across the US, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Europe, which has a high interest in Tamil culture. For us, it's a geographical extension.

It is not that our e-paper in English has a massive reach because a lot of news in English is available for free anywhere. Our e-paper business is miniscule.

We didn't want to launch a full-fledged edition because we couldn't see the opportunity in an already highly competitive market. We have launched a school product at a low price for a specific audience so that it helps in building the brand's footprint without business risk.

Increase our circulation in Bengaluru and Hyderabad significantly. We will come up with our plans for Business Line, Front Line and Sportstar.