Type | Daily newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | Dainik Bhaskar Group |
Language | Hindi |
Headquarters | Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. |
Circulation | 2,963,407 Daily[1] (as of December 2013) |
Website | bhaskar.com |
Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi: दैनिक भास्कर) is Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. It has the third-highest circulation in India according to Audit Bureau of Circulations.[1] It is owned by Dainik Bhaskar Group (D.B. Corp Ltd.), the largest Print Media Company of India. It was started in year 1958 from Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh. In 1983,it commenced its ambitious journey of expansion with the launch of Dainik Bhaskar's Indore edition. It expanded its presence to 14 states in 4 different languages namely Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and English. Currently, in Hindi markets under flagship newspaper "Dainik Bhaskar" it is present in 12 states with 37 editions. As of 2014, its National Editor is Kalpesh Yagnik who operates from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Contents
History
Dainik Bhaskar was first published in Bhopal and Gwalior of the central province. The newspaper was launched in year 1956 to fulfill the need for a Hindi language daily, by the name Subah Savere in Bhopal and Good Morning India in Gwalior in year 1957, it was renamed as Bhaskar Samachar In 1958, it was renamed as Dainik Bhaskar which in 2010, was the No. 1 daily newspaper in India (and No. 11 worldwide) in terms of circulation.[2]
Expansion outside Madhya Pradesh
By 1995, Dainik Bhaskar emerged as the No. 1 newspaper in Madhya Pradesh (MP).[3] and was declared as the fastest growing daily in India, by Readership Survey. The newspaper decided to expand outside MP, and identified Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan, as the market with the highest potential.
In 1996, Dainik Bhaskar's target was to enter Jaipur as No. 2 newspaper (in terms of circulation) on Day 1, with 50,000 copies. To achieve this target, it did a survey of 200,000 potential newspaper buying households in Jaipur. Instead of outsourcing the task of surveying households, it set up an in-house team of 700 surveyors. The team was highly trained in customer engagement, and was trained by experts in body language, grooming, posture, approach methods, social norms and rules etc. Based on survey feedback, they went back to each of the households surveyed, to show them a prototype of the newspaper and gave them the option to sign for an advance subscription. The customers were offered a subscription price of Rs. 1.50 (as against the newsstand price of Rs. 2) and a refund in case of dissatisfaction. When Dainik Bhaskar's first launch outside MP happened in Jaipur on 19 December 1996, it entered the market as No. 1 newspaper with 172,347 copies. Rajasthan Patrika, the former No. 1, had a circulation of just 100,000 copies at that time.[3] With similar launch strategy, Dainik Bhaskar has captures all the major cities of Rajasthan, like, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Kota, Udaipur, Ajmer Sikar and became no.1 urban newspaper of Rajasthan by 1999.
The newspaper's next target was Chandigarh. It launched a customer survey in January 2000, covering 220,000 households. At that time, the English language newspapers in Chandigarh outsold the Hindi newspapers by six times, with The Tribune as the leader (50,000 copies). Dainik Bhaskar's survey found that people in Chandigarh preferred English newspapers because of better quality. As a result, the newspaper concentrated on design, and incorporated the local Chandigarh dialect in the design, mixing Hindi and English. Dainik Bhaskar's second launch outside MP happened in Chandigarh in May 2000: it entered the market as No. 1 with 69,000 copies.[3]
In June 2000, Dainik Bhaskar entered Haryana, again as No. 1 on first day, with 271,000 copies.[3]
For its fourth launch outside MP, D.B. Corp Ltd. identified Ahmedabad, Gujarat as the city with highest potential. It surveyed 12,00,000 households, with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers. The surveyors were gathered largely through posters at colleges and word-of-mouth publicity, instead of expensive print and TV advertisements. Nearly 40-50% of the surveyors were later absorbed in Dainik Bhaskar or Divya Bhaskar, while the rest were given a certificate of appreciation. The team was trained to reach out to 8 lakh households in Ahmedabad and 4 lakh households in adjoining districts, in a time span of 40 days. The newspaper was launched in Ahmedabad on 23 June 2003, under the name Divya Bhaskar, as No. 1 with 452,000 copies (a world record). Within 15 months, it entered two more cities of Gujarat: Surat and Vadodara. To counter the Bhaskar's group's threat, the leading Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers. However, by 2009, Divya Bhaskar became the largest circulated Gujarati daily with 11.5 copies.[3]
In 2006, Dainik Bhaskar Launched its operations in Punjab, launched Amritsar and Jalandhar edition and became no.1 newspaper form the day one of the launch outplacing the old established player in the market. It again followed its twin- contact model for its launch. It further increased it presence in Punjab with the launch of Ludhiana and Bhatinda and became no. 1 player of Punjab.
D. B. Corp Ltd. launched Business Bhaskar, the first business daily in Hindi, on 27 June 2008. As of 2011, Business Bhaskar is the largest Hindi-language business daily and has eight editions (Delhi, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Raipur, Panipat, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Jaipur). Yatish K Rajawat is its founding editor.
In year 2010, Dainik Bhaskar entered Jharkhand Market with successful launch of Ranchi, followed by Jamshedpur & Dhanbad Editions Launch to cover and capture entire Jharkhand.
In 2011, D.B. Corp. Ltd. has extended its presence to 4th language Marathi with the launch of Marathi newspaper 'Divya Marathi" in Maharashtra [Aurangabad]. It focused on Marathwada region for its launch due to its rich cultural and economic prosperity. It decided to launch a Newspaper in Marathi language as 88% of the population were Marathi speaking. For its launch it has followed its proven twin-contact survey model. It surveyed 1.4lakh household reaching out to 75% of households in Aurangabad. It became the no. 1 newspaper from the day one of the launch in Aurangabad.[4] It has expanded in reach in Maharashtra with the launch of Nasik, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Akola and Amravati
In January 2014, Dainik Bhaskar entered market of Bihar with highly successful launch of Patna. Dainik Bhaskar Newspaper has become most popular newspaper of Patna from Day 1 of the launch with 170000 copies and No.1 in circulation in Patna City.
Dainik Bhaskar's pre-launch door-to-door twin-contact launch programme has been recognised as an Orbit-shifting innovation™ by Erehwon Innovation Consulting. It has won Business Process Innovation award by Marico Foundation, and is a case study in several B-schools including IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Mudra Institute of Communication.
Editions
D.B. Corp Ltd. owner of Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Divya Marathi, Saurashtra Samachar, DNA & DB Star has been No.1 Print media group of India, since last 3 years with 19.8 million readers, every day. With presence in 14 states, 4 Languages, with 37 editions of "Dainik Bhaskar",7 editions of "Divya Bhaskar", 7 editions of "Divya Marathi" D.B. Corp. Ltd. has highest overall readership, with highest Urban reach.
Related ventures
Besides, Print Media, D B Corp interest also spans out in Radio and Digital media wherein, it owns 17 radio stations and four websites in four languages.[citation needed]
Radio
MY FM, its radio property operates in 17 stations from 7 states, wherein it has print presence. It holds no. 1 position, in terms of listenership in majority of its market.[citation needed]
Digital media
In digital media it has four properties in 4 languages, www.dainikbhaskar.com (in Hindi), www.divyabhaskar.com (in Gujrati), www.divyamarathi.com (in Marathi) and www.dailybhaskar.com (in English). www.dainikbhaskar.com & www.divyabhaskar.com are the no. 1 website in Hindi & Gujarati, respectively. Its all four websites collectively has around 500 million pages views and 12 million unique visitors.[citation needed]
See also
- UPUKLive
- DNA (newspaper), a joint venture between Dainik Bhaskar Group and Essel Group
- Divya Bhaskar
References
- ^ a b "Details of language wise most circulated dailies for the audit period July-December 2013". Audit Bureau of Circulations. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
- ^ Neyazi, Taberez Ahmed (2010). “Cultural Imperialism or Vernacular Modernity? Hindi Newspapers in a Globalizing India”, Media, Culture and Society, Vol.26, No.6, pp.907-924, Sage, London.
- ^ a b c d e Porus Munshi (2009). "Dainik Bhaskar: No. 1 From Day One". Making Breakthrough Innovations Happen. Collins Business. pp. 16–33. ISBN 978-81-7223-774-5.
- ^ Case Study on Maharashtra launch by Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore