Delhi Press launches new website and app for Manohar Kahaniyan

Delhi Press formally launched a brand new website and app for the iconic true crime magazine, Manohar Kahaniyan. Launched in 1944, Manohar Kahaniyan, as well as its sister publication, Satyakatha (launched in 1972), have been relentless chroniclers of true crime stories from across the country. Over these eight decades, the magazines have built a huge repository of mystery and suspense stories, written in their signature storytelling style that leave readers entertained and spell bound. So much so that the magazines have inspired a whole genre of crime storytelling across different formats, in television, radio, films and now the streaming services.

The website manoharkahaniya.in, as well as the app under the same name, will now bring this huge bank of stories to a wider digital audience. Along with the text stories, the website and the app has an audio stories section, which will house a curated selection of stories narrated for a rich audio experience. The beta version of the sites was launched in May, which is now being followed by a full launch.

Delhi Press acquired the magazines ‘Manohar Kahaniyan’ and ‘Satyakatha’ in 2008. Since then it has been steadily building up the two print magazines to re-gain their earlier legacy. Besides the print magazines, the crime stories were also being published on websites of other Delhi Press magazines- Sarita.in, Grihshobha.in, and Sarassalil.in.

With the launch of the new website and app, a new destination for crime storytelling is being created. Speaking on this new digital initiative, Anant Nath, the Executive Publisher of Delhi Press said, “this is in continuation of our efforts to take the rich content of Manohar Kahaniyan and Satyakatha to a wider audience in new formats. The IP has immense recall value throughout much of India. Our aim is to take this huge catalogue of crime stories and adapt them into audio and video formats. Over the past few months, a large selection of audio crime stories from two magazines have already been licensed to Amazon’s audio streaming service Audible. Our plan is to publish close to 1000 such audio stories over the next few months. We are also working with Mumbai based production studios to adapt the Manohar Kahaniyan content for TV and OTT programming. A small selection of stories was earlier produced in collaboration with Shemaroo, for a crime channel on Tata Sky. We are now engaging in much larger conversations and will soon have more information to share”.

Paresh Nath, editor in chief and publisher of Delhi Press, further remarked, “the name Manohar Kahaniyan is a genre in itself. Our stories are written in easy to read, colloquial style, and with a unique blend of weaving in suspense and thrill. But more than just sensational stories, they are also meant to make readers aware of the dark side of the society, to be a mirror for some introspection for society at large, and to also shed light on the nefarious ways in which some of these crimes are committed”.

Speaking on the network of writers, Nath further added, “our editorial team has a network of close to 100 writers in cities and small towns across India, who remain in close contact with local police, lawyers, and police informers, who provide much of the primary source material for our stories. These are journalistic relationships and networks built over years, and therefore we are extremely pleased to bring this content in newer formats to the next generation of readers”.

The content of the digital sites has been organised under various genres of crime- love crime, cybercrime, political crime, social crime, and family crime. Besides these, there are sections dedicated to profiles and interviews of brave cops under the section ‘police news’, as well as a section dedicated to real life stories of gangsters and mafia dons.

In continuation of Delhi Press’ digital strategy of focusing on subscriptions, the content of manoharkahaniyan.in will also be behind a metered paywall. The audio stories will only be available to paid subscribers.

On digital subscriptions, Anant Nath further added, “We have had immense success with respect to paywalls for our websites of Caravan, Grihshobha, Sarita, and Saras Salil. We know our content is specialised and that each of these magazine brands offer a unique value proposition to its constituency of readers. There is a clearly defined product market fit in each case. And therefore we are continuing with this strategy of sticking to a paywall even for the new website of Manohar Kahaniyan”.