‘The Financial Express’ enters the Oxford of the East

‘The Financial Express’ (‘FE’) is all set to launch its 10th edition from Pune today, August 1, 2006. Together with Pune city and its surrounding districts, the daily will cater also to nearby markets like Baramati, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Sholapur and Aurangabad, thus bringing a sizeable chunk of the Western region within its reach.

The Pune edition marks the third launch by ‘FE’ in a span of just two months. On June 1, 2006, ‘FE’ launched its English edition in Ahmedabad and started printing in Chandigarh.

Currently, there are three business dailies in the Pune market, ‘The Economic Times’, ‘Business Standard’ and ‘Business Line’. The last named newspaper belongs to The Hindu Group and is brought in from Bangalore. The Express Group already has a stronghold in Pune in terms of numbers and perception with its English daily, ‘The Indian Express’, and its Marathi daily, ‘Loksatta’. Pune, which is termed the ‘Oxford of the East’ and the ‘Knowledge City of Maharashtra’, rightfully deserves another business daily.

‘FE’ recorded the highest growth in readership among all business dailies as per IRS R1 2006. It is the only financial paper in India with a vernacular edition, ‘The Financial Express Gujarati’. The daily is present in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi.

The Pune edition is positioned as a well-rounded corporate and policy newspaper. Sandipan Deb, editor, ‘FE’, says, “Being a leading engineering and manufacturing hub and also a frontrunner in the IT and ITES sectors, Pune is critical to India’s economic growth and development. And with its premier educational institutions and rising student population, it is also, perhaps, India’s youngest city in terms of percentage of population.” In addition, Pune boasts of a modern and cosmopolitan readership, which imbibes the best of traditional Maharashtrian culture together with a global outlook. ‘FE’ kept all these aspects in perspective when it chose to enter the market here.

Sukhmeet Channey, branch head, ‘FE’, Pune, explains, “Pune will definitely gain from the latest business daily and its focussed content, which will give due coverage to the city’s key sectors like automobiles, engineering, investment and management.”

The edition will have two sections. The main section will have national and international business news, economic news, edit and opinion pages, and state pages for news from the region.

The second section, called ‘Corporates & Markets’, will carry company news, market news and analysis and stock listings. An added attraction is an in-depth feature supplement on information technology, media and telecom every Monday. Readers can look forward to the weekend editions with a special pull-out on Saturday called ‘India Inc’, covering strategic trends across industry verticals and ‘fe Investor’ every Sunday, keeping investors updated on the latest trends in stocks, mutual funds and personal finance.

The pricing is similar to the other ‘FE’ editions, with the weekday edition priced at Rs 4, the Saturday edition at Rs 6 and the Sunday edition at Rs 8. The news content will be of a highly localised nature as the agenda is to reach out to the common man in the peripheral towns of Pune, which are crucial from a business point of view.

The team is already in place. The edition will be promoted with a multimedia campaign using press (newspaper inserts and advertisements in its sister publications) and an outdoor campaign.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!