MxMIndia

Tag: Jagran Prakashan Limited

  • For Peace to Mark International Peace Day

    IOAA Joins the Global Initiative Essays

    The Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA) haws joined the global movement Essays for Peace in commemoration of UN International Peace Day.

    Said Pawan Bansal, Chairman, Indian Outdoor Advertising Association & Chief Operating Officer – Jagran Engage, a unit of Jagran Prakashan Limited: “IOAA is delighted to mark International Peace Day as part of the global initiative and movement, “Essays for Peace.” This initiative is not only relevant and essential in today’s world but also part of IOAA’s broader mission to integrate into the global World Out of Home community, aiming to elevate the Indian out-of-home industry to international standards. Going forward, we will witness several such events on the Indian Out of Home platform. One key initiative being spearheaded by IOAA is the plan to make OOH India an eco-friendly and sustainable industry, with the goal of achieving ad-net zero by 2030.”

  • She will be in the group till July 1, 2021 and there is no replacement like in her place

    Apurva Purohit to exit Jagran group

    By Our Staff

     

    Apurva Purohit
    Apurva Purohit

    Apurva Purohit, senior media industryperson and President of the Jagran Group, has announced her departure from the Jagroup group. This is after over half a decade with the group and a 16-year stint with MBL (Radio City). She will be in the group till July 1, 2021 and there is no replacement like in her place.

     

    Said RK Agarwal, Group Chief Financial Officer, Jagran Prakashan Limited: “Apurva’s key strengths lie in her ability to simplify complex problems, build teams and implement innovations and strategies in a focused and extremely effective fashion. Her understanding of consumer behavior and what drives change in people, and managing the tough business of media which require both right and left brain thinking and her business acumen have been invaluable to Jagran, especially in the last few difficult years. Her exit is a great loss to the Group but also to me personally since I have always looked upon her for independent high quality advice in key matters, especially those concerning corporate governance and a business view of finance. I wish her all the very best”

     

    Added Purohit:  “I have spent 32 years in media and have had the good fortune to work on every possible media platform, from the early days of setting up Lodestar, one of India’s finest media houses, to working in television, radio, print and digital. These three decades have given me incredible opportunities to build and scale up a diverse set of businesses – from fledgling ones like Radio City, to new ventures like Times TV and supervising turnarounds in mature organizations like Zee TV. I will continue to use these experiences to mentor and guide CEOs and entrepreneurs to build valuable businesses, a role I have been doing for the past few years at Jagran and the other companies I am associated with. I have been reflecting recently, especially in this period of crisis, that it is the job of each one of us who has the ability and the resources to drive change, to worry about the economic situation around us and do everything in our power to create positive impact. This phase of my journey is about creating and funding businesses which work towards generating employment where it is needed, and at scale, a sorely needed initiative given the significant number of people who have been rendered jobless in the past year.”

     

     

  • The list was published amid the Covid-19 crisis, which has upended daily life and business operations throughout the region

    Music Broadcast Ltd ranks amongst the Best Workplaces in Asia

    By A Correspondent

     

    As per the Great Place to Work, a chronicler of workplace culture, Music Broadcast Limited ranks fourth on the 2020 Best Workplaces in Asia list.

     

    The ranking of Asia’s Best Workplaces is based on data collected prior to the Coronavirus outbreak.

     

    Said Apurva Purohit, President, Jagran Prakashan Limited: ”We are elated to yet again feature as Best Workplaces in Asia. As a company, our endeavor is to build an environment that encourages employee growth and organization productivity. Our ranking in Asia’s Top 5 Best companies to work for, is a testimony of our culture that promotes diversity, work life balance and collaborative approach.”

     

     

  • A Month-Long Extravaganza of Rejoicing Independent Music begins

    Stage set for the 6th edition of Radio City Freedom Awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    Radio City will look out for the top independent music talent with the launch of the sixth edition of ‘Radio City Freedom Awards’ (RCFA 6.0) with six gigs across seven cities and one grand finale. The month-long indie movement, will kick start on 13th February in Pune and will move to five other cities and culminating with a grand finale in Mumbai.

     

    Commenting on the launch, Rachna Kanwar, COO, Digital Media-Jagran Prakashan Limited said: “Over the years, Radio City Freedom Awards has become synonymous with independent music in India. Today, the property undoubtedly holds an aspirational value for the wave of budding independent talent in the country and we are proud to have helped lay the foundation for some of industry’s biggest talent. The growth in participation, listenership and voting is a testament to the equity RCFA commands in this space. We are thankful to everyone who has driven this success through the years and we look forward to yet another successful season ahead.”

     

     

  • Inext won the top award in the Public Service category for this year's World Young Reader Prize and has also been named World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year for 2012

    Inext seals the big show at WAN-IFRA awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    Taking yet another big leap, Inext has bagged the top honours in WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) awards for 2012.  With an unrelenting focus on espousing youth’s philosophy, Inext, won both the top award in the Public Service category for this year’s World Young Reader Prize and has also been named World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year for 2012. The prizes will be awarded on July 10 inBangkokat the 1st Asia-Pacific Young Reader Summit.

     

    WAN-IFRA, a global organisation of the world’s press, representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, gives away awards for excellence in the defence and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism, editorial integrity and the development of prosperous businesses and technology.

     

    Welcoming the announcement, Shailesh Gupta, Director, Jagran Prakashan Limited, congratulated the team and lauded the efforts that went into the winning campaigns and the stories. “It is due to the substantial focus and tangential wisdom of the team Inext that such smart campaigns which incorporated both the news value and more importantly, the societal concerns, were run. It has been yet another token of excellence for the Jagran group and I believe the good work would be kept up with in the future too.”

     

    This year, Inext’s success at WAN-IFRA hinged on three major stories: The Power of youth; wherein survey was done to tap the thinking and preferences of youth in run-up to the assembly elections in UP and Uttarakhand. Tol Mol Ke Poll was an election page carried daily till elections which focused on an issue related to elections almost daily and succeeded in connecting with youth through a column ‘Sadda Haq’.

     

    Second campaign was Bhari Basta; an educative and investigative campaign that activated the government machinery – school authorities, parents and teachers – to reduce the weight of schools bags of kids. It was run across 12 cities in 4 states and proved to be a catalyst in children empowerment. The Jury also found Inext’s iktara campaign, a unique folk singing competition, integrated online to bring out the talent in folk singing, a new approach to entertainment. It created a strong buzz across the country in favour of the old, relegated art.

     

    The jury observed that these campaigns provided a refreshing perspective on the 3Cs-corruption, compassion and creativity. “Inext did an excellent job in galvanizing youth to get out and vote. We found it especially interesting that youth considered corruption the number one topic of concern. The other two projects entered also showed creativity and relevance. The investigative report and campaign about heavy back-packs truly made a difference, and the folk singing contest was a fresh approach to youth entertainment,” mentioned the official communication.

     

    Last year, the World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year award was won by Indonesian newspaper JAWA POS, while for 2010 the winner was French newspaper Le Monde. This year, Inext has joined the distinguished league of such illustrious antecedents for the top honour.

     

    Expressing pleasure at the development, Inext’s Project Head and COO, Alok Sanwal revealed that it is Inext’s youthful vision that provided the cutting edge to the tabloid. “We have always tried to capture the social concerns with a young eye. All our major campaigns are directed at influencing young minds and developing in them a taste of societal awareness and understanding. We would continue to undertake such path breaking campaigns that underline our responsibility to change the world around us.”

     

  • Jagran Prakashan makes giant entry to Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh with Nai Dunia buy

    With Nai Dunia in the bag, Jagran is #1 print group

     

    By Archita Wagle

     

    There was no press conference announcing the deal. The Kanpur-based Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL) simply did it by notifying the stock exchanges. The acquisition of Nai Dunia was done via Suvi Info Management (Indore) Private Limited which in turn owns Naidunia Media. It was an all-cash deal.

     

    What it does for the Jagran group is significant as its hold on the Hindi belt becificant, a factor that could help strike better contracts with advertisers. In fact, as an analysis with IRS 2011 Round 4 numbers shows, the Nai Dunia acquisition has helped JPL become the numero uno print media group in the country (see accompanying story: Saala Jagran No 1 print media group ban gaya…)

     

     

    Announcements of the deal on the front pages of Nai Dunia (left) and Dainik Jagran (right)

    According to an analyst from a domestic brokerage firm, this deal makes sense to JPL as the enterprise value assigned to Nai Dunia is Rs2.25 billion and had JPL planned a greenfield expansion in MPC, the total cost could have run into at least Rs3 billion.

     

    In an email interaction with MxMIndia, Mr Amit Jaiswal, Company Secretary, JPL clarified that JPL has acquired only Nai Dunia. NewsX and Webdunia are not a part of the deal. Talking about the changes after the deal he said: “Mr Vinay Chhajlani will continue as Advisor to Board. His vast experience of print and knowledge about the market will be quite useful for us. We will add some new members to the team at senior level in sales, marketing and editorial. Our corporate brand team will help in branding and communication. As far as the staff, the erstwhile promoters have already rationalized the staff strength to a large extent.”

     

    Commenting on the acquisition in a communique, Mr Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of Jagran said, “This was a logical market expansion for us and enables us to strengthen our presence in Central India. Nai Dunia is a newspaper with a very strong team and has demonstrated editorial excellence over the last decade.”

     

    Nai Dunia is the flagship publication of Naidunia Media Limited, which was launched June 5, 1947. Nai Dunia features amongst the top 10 Hindi dailies of India and has multiple editions in MP and Chhattisgarh and is the third largest read newspaper in Madhya Pradesh and the fourth largest read newspaper in Chhattisgarh (IRS Q4 2011). According to a Jagran communique, Nai Dunia’s current circulation base is around half a million copies per day with the readership growing 2.6 times over the last five years.

     

    The industry is almost unanimous in saying that the deal is windfall for both the parties involved, especially JPL, which can now enter the Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgarh (MPC) market. JPPL, controlled by GD Gupta family publishes the Jagran editions in Bhopal and Rewa in Madhya Pradesh and JPL, promoted by the PC Gupta family, has been barred from using Dainik Jagran banner in MP as it has been in litigation since 2007. But with the Nai Dunia acquisition, the other option for JPL, they are entering the MPC market with an established newspaper, which is the second largest newspaper in terms of readership and business volumes in MPC.

     

    “JPL will benefit in terms of circulation and readership as it gets two new territories, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, with the acquisition of an established and well-known newspaper. JPL couldn’t enter Madhya Pradesh as per the agreement in the family, but now taking over Nai Dunia has opened the MP market for them,” said Mr Vijaydutt Shridhar, senior MP-based journalist and ex-editor of Navbharat.

     

    Mr Abhishek Karnani, Director, Free Press Journal which also has an edition in Indore, echoed Mr Shridhar’s sentiments: “The takeover deal is a windfall for both, JPL and Nai Dunia. Entering the MPC market was the next logical move for JPL. Initially the market had only Dainik Bhaskar and Nai Dunia but several local new publications with strong backing were launched in the market. Nai Dunia made a smart move in selling out rather than being marginalised in the market.”

     

    Says Mr Sundeep Nagpal of leading media consulting firm Stratagem, “This is in line with what other leading groups have done – like the Times of India group did with Vijaya Karanataka.” According to Mr Nagpal, the acquisition is a win-win for all parties involved.

     

    “With Nai Dunia’s acquisition, JPL has gained foothold in an important and growing market for Hindi publications. Nai Dunia never grew much beyond Indore, though they had launched editions in other cities. But with an aggressive player like JPL taking over we can expect to see Nai Dunia growing in other centres too. JPL has now entered Dainik Bhaskar’s territory. We can now expect a good fight,” said Mr Janardhan Pandey, associate VP, DDB Mudra.

     

    Stockmarket analysts though are a little cautious about this face-off as they believe that DB Corp will not be impacted because of the entry of JPL from a short to medium term perspective. But they say that Patrika would be impacted as Jagran would become aggressive to win back the No. 2 slot in MPC. The analysts also feel that the price paid (net of tax benefits) is inexpensive and should derive benefits in the medium to long-term.

     

    For the cash-rich Jagran group, the Nai Dunia acquisition follows that of Mid-Day two years ago and the management plans that Nai Dunia will be consolidated once a year just like Mid-Day.

    Saala Jagran No 1 print media group ban gaya…

    By A Correspondent

     

    Question: Until last fiscal, which was the largest print publishing house in the country?

    Answer: No, the answer is not Dainik Jagran. It’s Dainik Bhaskar, In fact, Jagran was at No 3 until two days ago, just behind the BCCL group. But with the buyout of the Nai Dunia group, Jagran now becomes the largest print media group in the country. Check tables below:

     

     

     

    Note: MRUC does not share detailed IRS numbers with the media. Given that we had adequate time for the confirmation of the Nai Dunia buy, we collected the information from what MRUC shared with us and from respective media entities.