By Tuhina Anand
Vikatan Group which publishes nine titles in Tamil is gearing up to launch its tenth title – Timepass. As the name suggests, the magazine will focus on entertainment and will cater to those young at heart. The offering is an aberration from Vikatan’s usual tone and tenor which is seen as a serious player and stays away from relying on any kind of controversy that magazines today rely on.
The magazine is a weekly and will be available every Saturday starting October 6, 2012. Priced at mere Rs 5, it will have 64 pages plus 4 pages of cover and will be A5 size. Initial plan is to have a print run of 5 lac copies which will include both sample copies as well as sold ones. In 3-4 months’ time the idea is to consolidate this number to 2.5 to 3 lakh sold copies. It will be sold predominantly in Tamil Nadu.
Explaining the idea behind the new magazine, Pravin Menon, National Head, Ad Sales, Vikatan Media Services, said, “This is entirely people driven product. At Vikatan, we have introduced a concept called Hello Vikatan where people can call and listen to few tips that is addressed in our magazines. Since its launch around 7 months back, the concept has become highly popular and we have 1.5 lac calls per month. Since we already had involved readers based on the info from the calls, we did a sample of six thousand people asking them what they would want from Vikatan. The response that we got was that they would like to read something irreverent and purely entertainer from us.â€
The content of the magazine and even the pricing is all decided by the readers. However, the low pricing raises few questions as print industry is already pressed with low pricing and pressure on margins plus the debate is whether even our daily newspapers should be charged more as the case in many countries.
Mr Menon said, “At Vikatan we don’t rely only on advertising as source of revenue and we have various innovative ways to generate revenues.†The group’s publications also has a strong digital presence.
The group plans to go all out to promote the product and will be spending approximately Rs 2.5 crore to market it taking television, print, OOH, mall activation, radio and even cinema theater. The tone of the advertising campaign will be irreverent in keeping with the tone of the magazine.
Vikatan Group publishes Tamil titles including AnandVikatan, Aval Vikatan, Doctor Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Chutti Vikatan, Shakti Vikatan, Pasumai Vikatan, Motor Vikatan, Naanayam Vikatan.