‘Pioneer’ to grab Northern market with Chandigarh edition

‘The Pioneer’, the Delhi and Lucknow based English daily, is in a new mode of activity. The CMYK Printech Ltd owned English daily will enter the Chandigarh market at the end of August 2006.

Chandigarh was a logical next step for the daily to consolidate its reach in the Northern region. “It is a hub of economic activity and, with it, we cover the four states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, thus bringing a sizeable chunk of the Northern region within our reach,” says Durbar Ganguly, vice-chairman and managing director, ‘The Pioneer’.

The Chandigarh edition will be priced at Rs 2 on weekdays and Rs 3.50 on Sundays. The pattern of news will remain similar to the other editions and the franchisee model, adopted since the past two years, will be emulated, wherein the pattern of news will remain similar and local reporters will cover happenings in all spheres, but the final product will be in tandem with the Delhi bureau. The news content will be of a highly localised nature, with six pages devoted to it. The newspaper will fill the need gap for a serious, political paper in the region.

The edition is positioned as a ‘thinking man’s paper’ and targeted at the SEC A segment, which consists of a sizeable, affluent, English-speaking population, which seeks niche newspaper categories. Ganguly says, “We are not vying for the top slots. Being a small player, our content is our niche and that will fetch us readers who are bored with the traditional mass-circulated dailies and look for food for thought.”

The daily will have an initial print run of 25,000 copies in Chandigarh. The team will be put in place soon.

‘The Pioneer’ plans to foray into other promising markets like Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, too. Also in the pipeline are at least three magazines with one of its kind content. .

Currently, ‘The Pioneer’ has a presence in Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Kochi and Bhubaneswar. The daily was recently given a new look and design by Subrata Bhowmick, an artist from MICA, Ahmedabad. ‘Darpan’ is their in-flight magazine and is published for Indian.

When probed about the alleged takeover/buyout of ‘The Pioneer’ by the Jagran Group, Ganguly refuted it outright.

Also in the expansion plan is the launch of an independent lifestyle magazine, called ‘Exotica’, in August 2006. With this, the parent company makes another foray into ‘contract publishing’, after it launched ‘Darpan’ in August 2002. ‘Exotica’ is an experiment in its genre because it will be positioned as a premium product and will not be available on the news stands. The group has signed up with three international hotel chains for the magazine and claims that it will be available in at least 20,000 hotel rooms soon.

Though Ganguly did not disclose a time-frame for the launch, he says, “The magazine is a highly customised product and will be tailored keeping in mind the hotel, state, clientele, etc. It’s one of its kind and we are breaking into a relatively virgin market where there are limited players like The Taj Group and The Oberoi Group, with their in-house publications.”

The magazine will have 90 per cent Indian content and will cover issues like tourism, lifestyle, health and wellness in an innovative fashion. Ganguly explains, “Since we are a new player, our focus will be to refrain from being repetitive and provide corporates and tourists frequenting these hotels with some interesting food for thought.”

© 2006 agencyfaqs!