Monica Bagrecha
Media

‘Financial Express’ to get a young look; plans a Lucknow edition

The business daily is currently in the process of revamping its design as well as content

‘Financial Express’ (FE) is trying to get younger. The pink business daily is currently in the process of revamping itself both in terms of design as well as content.

The strategy is to reach out to the young readers whom the daily loses out to competitors such as ‘The Economic Times’ and ‘Business Standard’.

Sandipan Deb, who recently took over as editor of ‘Financial Express’, says, “Traditionally, we have been reaching out to the 40-plus readers. But now we plan to widen our readership base by reaching out to the younger lot.”

The average age of FE readers is around 42. With this revamp, the pink daily plans to bring the average age of its readers to 32 by scaling the affiinity of the readers in their 20’s and 30’s towards itself. “We are basically targeting the mid-level executives, not primarily students,” he adds.

In terms of design, the new FE plans to have stand-alone pictures on the cover page, instead of just putting the headlines of the day. In terms of content, the pink daily now plans to have a judicious mix of political, economic policy and corporate news and features. The revamped FE will have corporate and economic policy news in the ratio of 60:40.

Besides, first person will be used both in headlines and the copy. This will be done to connect better with readers.

As part of this strategy, the business newspaper will now have revamped editorial and op-ed pages with more themes, going beyond the current ones of advertising, marketing and technology. Career and knowledge-related news too will be added in the bid to attract a younger readership base.

The revamped FE will have more coloured supplements. For instance, the Sunday issue of FE will be packaged as Sunday morning leisure reading for the up-market business news readers, covering more of lifestyle, arts and culture.

The business daily now has a pan-India presence. Its Pune edition was launched in August. The Lucknow edition will be launched by September-end. It is the only financial paper in the country with a vernacular edition, ‘The Financial Express Gujarati’ launched in Gujarat in 1991.

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