By Akash Raha
Pune is all set to welcome a new English daily. The 40-year-old Aaj ka Anand group is set to bring out the newspaper in a joint venture with content firm Media Next Private Limited . Aaj ka Anand publishes a Hindi morning daily, Aaj ka Anand and a Marathi eveninger, Sandhya Anand and has interests in real estate and also runs a budget hotel in the city.
Media Next is a multimedia content service provider whose Chairman is senior Pune-based journalist Mr Anand Agashe. The managing editor of the newspaper will be Mr Agashe, and Ms Vinita Deshmukh, also a veteran Pune journalist and RTI activist, has been appointed as the editor.
Speaking on this development Mr Agashe said, “Pune is becoming a cosmopolitan city and its demographics are changing, with the rise of middle class and upper middle class, whose preferred language for communication is English. The Aaj ka Anand group thought it was necessary to have a English daily which would complement its Hindi and Marathi newspapers.”
While Aaj ka Anand will own the newspaper, the content will belong to Media Next. The application for the newspaper is currently being processed and the name of the English daily is hence still under wraps. According to Mr Agashe, the English newspaper is all set to be launched in the next two to three months.
While Marathi dailies are the dominant players, Pune is already crowded with several established players like The Times of India, Indian Express, DNA and Sakaal Times in the English space. Mid-Day too has a Pune edition. The entire print revenue generated in Pune is said to be between Rs 500-525 crore.
Speaking on this development, Jaisurya Das, Managing Director of Xanadu Consulting Group and a veteran on the Pune market said, “I admire their guts to come out with a English daily, because to get a product differentiated is going to be very difficult and they are not known as market leaders. Aaj ka Anand is a fairly low profile group, which has been active only in the Hindi and Marathi market catering to a B1, B2 or C1, C2 kind of an audience.”
Mr Das feels that there are a couple of issue the group has to work on. “The first thing is, it is not a marketing savvy group, unless they are going to bring a whiz kid. The second is that they have to come up with excellent and differentiated content. I am not saying that there is no room in the Pune market for a newspaper. If you bring in a daily with highly localized local content, it might work. It’s a tough call and unless the group delivers differentiated content and comes up with an aggressive marketing strategy, there is going to be a lot of bloodshed ,” he added.