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‘Dainik Bhaskar’ enters Punjab
After launching ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ in Chandigarh and Haryana, the Bhaskar Group is targeting three key cities of Punjab – Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana
After a successful run in Chandigarh and Haryana, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ has decided to enter the Punjab market. The first edition will be rolled out from Amritsar, and Jalandhar and Ludhiana will follow soon.
“Punjab is an untapped market with a lot of potential,” says Girish Agarwal, director, marketing, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’. He is optimistic about the editions doing well, despite strong competition from ‘Punjab Kesari’ and Dainik Jagran’ in the state.
“Entering any market is not a cake walk,” Agarwal says. “Although the scope in these markets is tremendous, the degree of competitiveness has changed over the last five years.”
Entering Punjab is a part of its overall expansion strategy for ‘Dainik Bhaskar’. And in future, the group also plans to explore the Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi markets.
Agarwal says, “Punjab is one market where the reach of Hindi dailies is more than that of the regional (Punjabi) newspapers.”
“Specifically, the urban markets of Punjab are Hindi driven,” he emphasises.
In Punjab, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ has decided to go the ‘DNA’ way. This means that the company will do extensive research to find out what the Hindi readers in Punjab want in a newspaper. For the uninitiated, ‘DNA’, the Mumbai based English daily, is a joint venture between the Zee Group and ‘Dainik Bhaskar’.
Agarwal confirms that the first round of the survey is on and that, hopefully, this will make the newspaper more reader and people friendly.
The newspaper will be promoted aggressively through outdoor, inserts and mobile vans across Punjab.
The print run and the cover price are still being worked out. Or, rather, the Bhaskar Group executives were not too willing to comment on either. While ‘Dainik Jagran’ sells at Rs 2, ‘Punjab Kesari’ sells at Rs 2 on four days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday) and Rs 3 on the other three days.
The Bhaskar Group plans to spend around Rs 90 crore on this project.
Agarwal is hopeful that a lot of advertising revenue will come from the automobile and banking sectors and institutions.
For the record, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ has 23 editions across eight states and, in all, the group claims to have 2.25 crore readers. Meanwhile, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ might also try its hand at a business publication after surveying certain key markets.
© 2006 agencyfaqs!