Adgully Exclusive | Trivandrum offers good potential: Deccan Chronicle's Amit Shukla

Deccan Chronicle a daily with a total readership of 2,638,000 readers (IRS 2011 Q1 data) has launched its Trivandrum edition on the 20th of August 2011. The launch follows the daily's Kochi and Coimbatore edition. Entering a space where the language dailies have over years held the leader position it will be interesting to see how the daily will break into the market and acquire its readers.

Calling itself the English Daily Newspaper for Young Minds, Amit Shukla, Chief Executive Officer, Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited, tells Adgully, "Our USP is Deccan Chronicle's strong appeal to young minds, and the habit-forming quality of our product which comes there from."

Talking about entering the new market, Shukla adds, "Trivandrum as a market has a substantial number of people with young minds who know English, and are therefore potential readers of Deccan Chronicle."

"Trivandrum is a major city which is growing fast, with an increasing proportion of people who know English, and who use English in their offices, computers, and homes. From the advertiser perspective, the disposable income and purchasing power is growing fast as well. It is a high potential market, from the point of view of Deccan Chronicle, we being the largest circulated English daily in South India," he added.

The initial print run for the Kochi edition is 10,000 copies and the daily expects that this will grow to a much larger circulation in a short time. The newspaper is priced at Rs.2.50 for all days.

Elaborating on the pricing strategy and talking about a possibility of a price war in the future, Shukla says, "We believe there will be no price war and all papers will probably focus on their own customers based on their respective products. In Trivandrum as in other places, we expect to attract and retain readers who are young minds, and who know English : a portion may already have liked the product and become readers of an existing English Daily, while the balance know English but may not be reading an English newspaper today but will start after Deccan Chronicle is available. Since Trivandrum has an increasing proportion of people who know English, and who use English in their offices, computers, and homes, it offers good potential to Deccan Chronicle."

He further adds, "We expect to hit decent advertising revenue after a short time, with increasing pull as advertisers will see the numbers going up."

The newspaper will include a standard compliment of supplements, including the daily tabloid "Trivandrum Chronicle', the TV & Entertainment Guide on Saturdays and the "Sunday Chronicle'. Shukla adds that products may be added or modified based on reader response. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]