In next 2 months Bhaskar Group to launch Marathi daily!

The Dainik Bhaskar Group recently sent an intimation to the Bombay Stock Exchange about its plan to launch a new title in the Marathi language daily segment. It is reportedly believed that the group will be soon launching a Marathi daily. The soon to be launched daily might bear the title of Divya Marathi. Though the title does not feature on the list of registered titles for Marathi dailies in the Registrar for Newspapers of India's official website.

None of the official's were ready to comment and confirm the developments. However highly placed sources reveal that the daily might be launched from the Nashik, Aurangabd or Pune market.

Experts say that the Marathi daily market has enough place for as many players as the market is fast growing. Cities like Aurangabad and Nagpur are showing growth in disposable incomes and literacy rates thus furthering the growth of the Marathi daily market. Experts contend that content-wise there might not be anything new to look forward to and that the Group's entry will only bring in growth in readership, circulation and ad sales figures. The 7 to 8 prime cities across the state of Maharashtra are fast growing and the state is also in fact a fragmented and complex market owing to the difference in the socio-cultural factors across every town and city in the state.

Dainik Bhaskar has entered many new markets over the past year. The Group has been known for its aggressive readership and circulation strategies, however other players in the Marathi daily market like Lokmat have gone headstrong with the same aggression through unique ways to build a successful network of readership and circulation. The Marathi language market right now has strong established players like Sakaal, Lokmat, Maharashtra Times, Pudhari, Loksatta, Sandhyanand, Tarun Bharat and Punyanagiri. At this point in time Lokmat alone accounts to about 20 lakhs of circulated copies.

The Group has a Gujarati daily which is called Divya Bhaskar. The group publishes seven newspapers from 52 centres across the country in three different languages - Hindi, English and Gujarati. Apart from Divya Bhaskar, the group publishes the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar and the English daily DNA, the latter through a joint venture with the Subhash Chandra promoted Zee group. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]