Wearing as many hats as he does, it was perhaps unsurprising that the launch of Lokmat Group Chairman Vijay Darda’s new book, ‘Ringside’, was so widely attended, by a large cross-section of eminences. The journalist, activist, former MP and media house owner was in Delhi where his book was launched by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, and introduced by Dr Sanjay Baru, and The Print’s Shekhar Gupta, followed by a characteristically no-holds-barred talk between Rajdeep Sardesai and the man of the hour.

The book is an eclectic collection of 218 articles, written by Darda over the past several years for a variety of publications, on a wide-ranging number of topics, all of which add up to his views on the evolution of political thought, socio-economic mores and landmark moments in the country’s recent history. The packed launch was attended by politicians, veteran journalists, senior bureaucrats and others who walk the corridors of power in Delhi and beyond.

Speaking about the book and Darda’s particular contributions to the political discourse of the country, both journalistic and parliamentary, Baru mentioned at length the author’s non-partisanship, as well as the unbiased reporting by the Lokmat group of publications. Baru extolled the fact that whether he was writing articles or asking questions in parliament, Darda was known for not pulling his punches, and ever willing to ask awkward questions.

Darda’s continued efforts to establish Vidharba as its own polity, distinct from Maharashtra was brought up many a time, with Baru hailing Darda’s championing the region and its people. Darda assured the audience that he had every confidence that it would be a reality sooner than later.

On the subject of regional concerns, Gupta spoke about the growing strength and impact of regional Indian journalism. “India is the only country where newspaper readers are increasing, as people from across the country are becoming literate and wanting to stay informed. And all these languages, from Marathi to Gujarati to Telugu, have loyal readerships that far exceed the so-called elite English publications,” said Gupta, adding that he personally eschewed the term ‘vernacular’, given all of India’s languages were as important in building a national narrative.

Acknowledging that same plurality, whether linguistic or any other, Tharoor said that there was a growing intolerance, especially for criticism, in the current political climate, noting, “There has been a gradual depletion in the relations between the political class and media.”

Tharoor said this vitiated the ideals of democracy even as it hampered progress and there was a dire need for political parties, media houses and professionals and other stakeholders to work together to resolve issues and help India move ahead.

Other attendees of the book launch were BJP’s Varun Gandhi and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, NCP's Praful Patel, BSP's Danish Ali, J-K National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and CPI's D Raja, among others.

Dainik Bhaskar has launched in Mumbai with Concept managing the brand.

Concept Communication brings with it deep knowledge of subject categories coupled with a thorough understanding of the consumers' spectrum that influences and impacts its PR solutions something that matches Dainik Bhaskar's current set of requirements - to do with their launch and future sustenance.

Commenting on the win, Vivek Suchanti, Chairman and Managing Director of Concept Communications, said “Dainik Bhaskar Group and Concept Group have a long-standing association. Trust of brands like Dainik Bhaskar, one of India’s premier brands, is of paramount importance. We are naturally very happy that they have chosen us to partner with them with such a prestigious launch.  We look forward to creating a targeted and effective solution for the brand”

Kailash Agarwal, Managing Director of Bhaskar Prakashan Pvt Ltd, said: “We are on a journey to expand our footprint across the country and consolidate our current position of No 1 newspaper. We were looking for strong partners who could help us launch the brand in Mumbai. We found the team Concept both insightful and proactive. We believe that they are the right partners for us in our journey.”

Dainik Bhaskar has concluded the fiscal on a stronger note with good Y-o-Y growth, especially  because the print media industry is witnessing a strong growth in advertising across segments,    said non-executive director Girish Agarwal during the Q4 FY23 earnings conference call. 

“This is happening across languages Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, which is very heartening,” he added.

Agarwal shared that the company's key market seems to be doing very well as is evident in the GST collection, which is up by almost 15-25%. “Dainik Bhaskar’s editorial strategies and dominant position in these markets has resulted in a strong growth of advertising revenues across the board. In addition, the new age sectors, the digital players are also using print for their hyperlocal campaigns. And we are very optimistic that this trend of increasing revenues will continue in the forthcoming quarters. Our radio and digital presence are ever increasing, and we continue to innovate our content, improve our omni-channel platform for delivering truthful, crisp and pertinent content to our loyal reader base.” 

He also shared that they have been implementing various cost-optimization measures over the past few years to ensure that these measures keep cost in control.”The newsprint prices have also started softening further, and while newsprint prices were high on a Y-o-Y basis, it has started to taper off and the true benefit of this tapering will be visible over the forthcoming quarters.”

According to Pawan Agarwal, Deputy Managing Director, DB Corp, the company concluded fiscal 2023 on an optimistic note with strong results on the back of growth in ad revenues across all major markets and circulation. 

“The group’s print advertising for fiscal FY23 grew by a strong 27% Y-o-Y. Print advertising grew 16% Y-o-Y in Q4FY'23. Our consolidated EBITDA grew by an impressive 34% Y-o-Y. And in Q4FY23, to Rs 889 million, with margin expanded by 250 basis points despite higher newsprint prices,” he said.

“We've been highlighting, over the past few quarters, the strong revival of traditional media and this quarter, once again, demonstrated print media as the most credible source amongst advertisers, resulting in strong growth in advertising revenues across categories,” said Agarwal. 

According to him, traditional advertisers, such as real estate, education, white goods and jewellery etc., continue to use print as a preferred medium and the auto segment has started to see some movement. “The Audit Bureau of Circulation Survey for July 2022 to December 2022, continues to position Dainik Bhaskar Group as the largest circulated newspaper group in India and Dainik Bhaskar on the top position as the largest circulated newspaper in India, with a very wide gap with number two print player.”

Moving on to the digital business, he said that it has been a key focus area and an important vertical in terms of future growth for our business. “The company has been steadily growing its loyal monthly active user base across its apps with an increase of over seven times, from 2 million users in January 2022 to more than 14 million in March 2023. Our teams continue to work on the digital apps to improve the engagement with users and this is helping overall retention of our readers across all formats.”

Meanwhile speaking on the circulation revenue Girish Agarwal said, “Our loss of copies is nil. When it comes to Q4 numbers last year as compared to this year, we are at the same number- Rs 43 lakh round. I have increased the cover price from Rs 4.70 to Rs 4.82. So, I have taken Rs 0.12, which is a 3% jump in my cover price overall without any loss in the circulation.”

Speaking about the newsprint cost, Agarwal shared that in quarter 2 last year, DB Corp was at Rs 63,500 per ton blended cost of the newsprint, Indian and imported. “In Q3, it went down to Rs 61,500. In Q4, it went down to Rs 60,000 and as we are sitting in Q1, we are hopeful that this Q1 would close at around Rs 57,000. So there has been a constant decline in the newsprint cost. And also, this will reflect in the margin going forward.”

The exchange4media group last week started a series called ‘Leading from the front’ that looks at how pioneers, industry leaders and founders are creating legacies and institutions in the Indian Media & Entertainment industry. Today, we bring to you the story of how Vineet Jain has led from the front in creating a diversified, futuristic, pioneering multimedia media conglomerate.

Vineet Jain, who first joined The Times Group in 1988, has an enviable legacy, not only as a far-sighted strategist who diversified the group into all other media  beyond Print, but also as the chief content architect for newspapers, TV, radio and online platforms, whose initiatives have subsequently become templates for rest of the industry. After being appointed the Deputy Managing Director in 1993 and Managing Director five years later, he has been handling the day-to-day operations of the group- marketing, cost functions, HR, brand management etc.

When he had first joined the Times Group, Vineet Jain was involved in the overall content strategy and its execution, including pagination, design, editorial innovations of the main newspapers, ie The Times of India, The Economic Times and Navbharat Times. Herein, he was instrumental in introducing the now standard template of localisation of news in a national newspaper by very significantly expanding the edition-specific city coverage of TOI by increasing these pages and deepening focus. This was the first time this was done for a national newspaper on such a scale. Vineet Jain also helped fine-tune and structure some of the other sections of the newspaper which have stood the test of time. The visionary also realised, several decades ago, that shorter news articles that could pack in more variety, were critical to garner readers' attention at a time when the Internet was beginning to emerge on the horizon. As part of this, he introduced a brief, Times Views- one paragraph boxed edits in the news pages of TOI & ET- so that readers could be drawn into analysis of the news item even as the boundary between news and views was maintained. 

Hence, the newspaper's architecture and its content strategy was modernised by Jain, who had emerged as the group's chief content architect by the late 1990s. These building blocks for the modern newspaper via seminal changes in content strategy and architecture were (alongwith the innovations like invitation/cover pricing and subscription schemes helmed by Vice Chairman Samir Jain), were responsible for the TOI pulling ahead of Hindustan Times in Delhi by the late 1990s.

But in the same way as his rigorous and detail-oriented approach embraced readers' needs for more news-they-can-use and introduced more reader-friendly content like stocks listings, crosswords and reader engagement sections, film reviews, etc in the main TOI newspaper, Vineet Jain is also credited with pioneering lifestyle and entertainment journalism in India. He conceived of and executed the TOI edition-wise supplements like Delhi Times, Bombay Times, etc, which brought in lakhs of younger readers and new audience segments with their visually appealing all-colour focus on health, fashion, fitness, films, entertainment etc. These were a runaway hit with advertisers and have been copied right across the newspaper industry in particular, and amended to other platforms like TV and Digital, in general. More importantly, these have become the entry points for entirely new genres of advertisers, for fashion, design, health, fitness, wellness etc, for Indian newspapers to cater to aspirational new audiences in post-liberalisation India.

Industry experts point out that Vineet Jain understands youth and urban culture like no other media owner. Infact, the creation of lifestyle journalism across media triggered a huge new events industry with entirely new audiences and advertisers. Again, Times Group has led the way here. While initially the Times' lifestyle supplements were the driving force for advertisers to sponsor events, as the group helped mature and professionalise the industry as a whole, events of all genres became a separate major revenue stream, and this model was subsequently picked up across media.

Apart from this legacy in publishing, Vineet Jain has diversified the group beyond Print, into every other possible media space. He, early on, recognised the elemental challenge of the Internet, and hence the TOI was one of the first newspapers to start a website in 1997, with Times Internet Ltd established in 2000 spawning a large number of digital entities that made it India's largest digital media house. 

But well before that, in the mid 1990s, Vineet Jain was perhaps the only Indian media owner who recognised the power of Radio. Times FM was the first private entity to broadcast on AIR, and it was transformed into Radio Mirchi (now Mirchi) once private FM radio stations were allowed by the government. Mirchi remains the market leader to this day-- cementing his place as the godfather of the Indian FM Radio industry. 

Vineet Jain also made early forays into TV but wisely stayed away until the dust of scores of other entrants had settled. But with the entry of Times Now (and Times Network's clutch of other pathbreaking channels), Indian news television will never be the same again. Vineet Jain has, therefore, been responsible for transforming the Times Group from a print newspaper and magazine publisher into one of Asia's largest media conglomerates. He has done this by putting the reader, viewer and listener first, anticipating every shift and change, using technology and industry-wide best practices and building a world-class team that matches his trademark rigorous work ethic. As a towering industry leader who has left an enviable legacy for Print and other sectors of the media industry by rewriting many of the rules and transforming content, strategy and profits- across every part of the Indian media value chain, it would be interesting to see the next chapter he scripts for the industry which is yet to unfold.

In 2013, the exchange4media group awarded the Impact Person of the Year title to Vineet Jain because of these reasons and his pioneering role in building the industry .

While the popular perception is that Vineet Jain has built new businesses like TV, Digital and Radio in Times Group, it would be prudent to note that when Vineet Jain joined TOI in 1988 at the age of 21, and over the next three decades-plus, he contributed significantly to the print side of the business. When Vineet Jain joined his father Ashok Jain and older brother Samir Jain, the mainstay of the business was the dominant print and newspaper business.

While Samir Jain is rightly credited with leading and guiding and strategising the Response, Monetisation, Invitation Pricing in the last three decades-plus and now Brand Capital in the last 15 years, the younger Jain contributed tremendously to the print business and newspaper business also working alongside with his older brother Samir Jain.

Senior executives recall Vineet Jain driving and being fully involved in running and leading the newspaper and print organisations. He was fully involved in human resources and hiring and leadership mentoring and supervision. Jain was also involved in the product and marketing side of the newspaper and the print business. Vineet Jain was also involved in taking decisions on the editorial architecture of the editorial print products, right from conceptualising the new entertainment supplements which the entire media industry adopted post initial criticism.

Vineet Jain also contributed to the city supplements and the hyper localisation of news within the newspapers and made sure that these supplements became an editorial force as well as a revenue contributor.

Over the last 36 years of Vineet Jain being active at the Times Group, he was actively involved in administration, printing and all aspects of management.

Vineet Jain also helped in taking these newspapers to the internet more than two and a half  decades back; the newspapers sites were launched under his leadership.

While Vineet Jain is rightly credited with building the TV business, the radio business, the digital and internet business and the education business of the Times Group, in the first 18-20 years of his being part of the leadership, he contributed to the newspaper and print business tremendously in more areas and spearheaded many strategic editorial, marketing and product initiatives whose imprint is still seen on the business of the times group.

Vineet Jain's imprint on the Times Group has been tremendous and it started in print, but through his pioneering approach, he has led the process of building a futuristic conglomerate.

Dainik Jagran Group has been honoured with 12 awards by the  International News Media Association (INMA) in New York.

Dainik Jagran received a total of nine awards at the INMA Global Media Awards. Apart from two gold, one silver and two bronze medals, Dainik Jagran's campaigns have also received four honorable mentions.

Dainik Jagran's campaign Yashasvi Pradhan bagged the first prize, while Shifting Subscription Gears with First Party Data, a campaign to attract new customers, also bagged the first prize. The campaign for a safe traffic system has got second place on these busy roads.

Sanskarshala, a news campaign to inculcate good manners and sense of goodness among teenagers, and a circulation campaign to attract new customers, got the third place. The readership continues to grow as evidenced by award winning campaigns to acquire new customers.

After the news of shortage of fodder for cows in Haryana, a campaign named ‘Go Grass’ was started for its availability. This campaign, got Honorable Mention in two different categories. Apart from this, three other campaigns of Dainik Jagran have also got Honorable Mention.

Dainik Jagran Group's new media  has received the Silver Award for the Pulse of the City campaign. At the same time, its associate publication Inext has received an honorable mention for its Holi Ke Har Rang campaign.

Basant Rathore, Senior Vice President, Brand & Strategy, received the award on behalf of Dainik Jagran in New York. The INMA Awards were announced at the award ceremony held at the prestigious Harvard Club in New York on Saturday.

INMA is the most prestigious global award, which has been given since 1937 with the aim of encouraging media excellence and innovation. This year, the INMA Global Awards received 775 entries from 239 leading news organizations from 40 countries. An eminent international jury comprising 54 media personalities from 19 countries selected the awards.

Apart from the INMA Awards, Dainik Jagran also achieved an impressive feat at the famous AB Awards ceremony. In the AB 2023 ceremony organized during Goafest in the past, it registered its strong presence by winning Silver Medal for Sanskarshala and Safe Traffic Campaign and Bronze Medal for Go Gras Campaign.

On May 30, 2023, the BJP-led central government will complete nine whole years of having won a decisive win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections

Politics is a landscape that requires constant attention and amendments from time to time for the evolution of a country. Today’s date, India is widely accepted as a global power. However, the recognition didn’t happen overnight. 

On May 30, 2023, the BJP-led central government will complete nine whole years of having won a decisive win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In the past nine years, the global power recognition of India had been methodically created and has been accelerated by the Modi government's political and policy leadership.

In an exclusive run-through, BW Businessworld presents the journey of nine whole years of Narendra Modi-led BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) government. Moreover, as part of its ninth-anniversary celebrations, the ruling party has planned a series of events to demonstrate the Narendra Modi administration's welfare measures that have improved the lives and standard of living of millions of Indians through a variety of direct and indirect benefits.

The exclusive run-through highlights the remarkable achievements, innovations, developments, and a few misses under the NDA government’s tenure. It also includes some expert opinions from industry experts.

One of the run-through write-ups throws light upon the significant progress of the Modi government in sectors such as roads, highways, railways, aviation, forex reserves, banking including the role of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), stock markets including the performance of BSE and NSE. It also highlights the implementation of several measures targeted at bolstering the economy and reaching the ambitious objective of a $5 trillion GDP. Howsoever, the article also points out areas that require further attention in domains such as Agriculture and Farmers’ welfare, job creation, unemployment, education and skill development, and healthcare infrastructure.

An interesting column by Srinath Sridharan in one of his opinion columns for BW Businessworld consisted of the journey of Modi-led BJP government and its nine years along with its developments and initiatives in an alphabetical order. The initiatives included in the A-Z of nine years incorporates ‘Ayushman Bharat’, digital India, global leadership, Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme, and 22 more developments and initiative started under the tenure of the Modi Government. The column also highlighted the ability to look beyond conventional bounds and pioneer novel ideas which Sridharan considered a hallmark of great leadership in the field of governance. It showcased how the Modi administration and party’s dedication demonstrated a creative problem-solving methodology through several ground-breaking initiatives, propelling India towards a new era of prosperity and development.

The run-through of nine years of the Modi government also featured and highlighted the events of initiatives and decisions that could have been implemented in a better and smoother form. Some of the events consisted of demonetisation in 2016, implementation of CAA and NRC in 2019, farm laws in 2020 and its re-appeal in 2021, and the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 in its first wave and the second wave in 2021. It also throws light upon the launch of PMCARES and its lack of transparency and accountability for the massive amount of money used or allocated by the government.

In another interesting column by S. Ravi on BW Businessworld, decoding the Prime Ministers’ contribution to India’s growth. Ravi focussed on the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’, which enabled the availability of bank accounts with zero maintenance amount, remittances, insurance services, credit, and pensions. The policy resulted in over 47 crore accounts have been opened under this scheme. Another area of highlight was the introduction of GST in 2017 to curb tax leakages and improvement in the system, resulting in a total gross collection for FY 2022-23 standing at over INR 18 lakh crores. The column also addressed demonetisation and digitalisation as well as the ‘Make In India’ initiative of vaccine, Covishield, and Covaxin during the Covid-19 pandemic, among other initiatives. 

A feature story on the growing foreign relations in the era of Modi government was also submitted. It highlighted the interesting turn of events in foreign policy and how it benefitted India in multiple forms with the growing stature of India as the fastest-growing world economy, be it the Russia and Ukraine crisis or holding the G20 presidency. The feature throws light upon India’s growing relations with its neighbouring countries as well. 

In a guest column by Dr. Brajesh Kumar Tiwari, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on BW Businessworld, Tiwari highlighted the big challenges for the NDA government in these turbulent times of global uncertainty. Moreover, another feature story decoded the major schemes in the past nine years of the Modi government such as Stand Up India scheme, PMUY, Atal Pension Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana.

Given the demographic in the regime of the Modi government, BW Businessworld covered all the aspects of the nine years of functioning of the BJP-led government at the centre.

TOI’s  30 inspiring stories from across the length and breadth of the country won big at the recently held INMA Global Media Awards.

From India's digital revolution, led by its pathbreaking online payments system, to its endeavours in space, art and conservation and many other fields, the campaign, powered by TOl's extensive network of journalists spread across the country, showcased India's achievements in 75 years since Independence as a continuum of progress while emphasising that this is the best time to be Indian.

The other top winning campaigns included:

#lamHyderabad: A city celebration campaign aimed at showcasing the love and pride of residents in their city, by drawing upon user-generated content that showed the many facets of Hyderabad.

Times Podcast Challenge: Promoted education through technology in Kolkata, asking students to submit their podcasts on specific themes via the Ei Samay Gold platform.

Ek Hobar Utsav (Ei Samay): In these polarising times, the campaign showed the power of 'one' by bringing in heartwarming stories of 'oneness' from various corners of Bengal.

Navbharat and Ei Samay Gold: For driving these podcasts to attain maximum subscribers, this involved creating internal dashboards through which tools such as Google Data Stud and marketing automation platforms were leveraged.

The Art of India Fest 2022: This national platform for showcasing Indian art brought together over 400 artworks by 220-plus artists, ranging from eminent names to students from art colleges at a physical exhibition at India's largest exhibition centre.

Print Ad with Augmented reality - Hyundai Ad: Via a QR code in a print ad, through usage of WebAR technology, an experience of Hyundai's Agile Mobile Robot (called SPOT) was brought alive for the readers of TOI and ET in key cities.

Client Deduplication-innovative Al-driven customer data grouping: The Business Insights team created an in-house machine learning-based tool for client deduplication, creating a base of over 10 years of data with more than 90% accuracy.