Patrika-Bhaskar competition leads to localisation, commercialisation in Rajasthan

India`s newspaper revolution has been spurred on by rivalries such as the one in Rajasthan. And its most striking outcome has been localisation of dailies that used to publish only out of state capitals.

By Sevanti Ninan

Never underestimate the power of going local. In Rajasthan, where the newspaper market has changed beyond recognition in six years, competition has transformed what newspapers look like, what they cover, how far into the hinterland they reach, and the ways in which they sell themselves. It has also expanded the market, with both leading newspapers selling more copies today throughout the state than the market leader did back in 1996. Before Dainik Bhaskar came to this state Patrika`s circulation was 4 lakh. Today it claims a total of 6.09 lakh in Rajasthan, while Bhaskar claims 7.8 lakh. (Neither has its total for Rajasthan certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations).

In those days the Rajasthan Patrika was king. Before 1996 if somebody had suggested to the Patrika management that six years down the line they would be giving away plastic chairs in an effort to bolster circulation, they would most certainly have snorted in derision. And if you had suggested to them that they would be launching schemes to give vouchers for free medical tests to Jaipur`s well-fed gentry and coming up with scratch cards, there would have been more derision. The paper saw itself then, and still tries to see itself now, as an old style media house practising journalism as a vocation rather than as a business. But it knows that the rules of the game have changed, and has rapidly learned to play by the new rules.

Until 1996 the Dainik Bhaskar did not exist beyond the borders of Madhya Pradesh. In that year it set out to expand, and started its first Rajasthan edition in Jaipur. Before that it did what possibly no regional newspaper had done till then in this country. It hired 500 market surveyors and unleashed them upon an unsuspecting Jaipur. Over six months they did two house-to-house surveys covering both families and commercial establishments. They wanted to find out what readers and advertisers wanted from a newspaper. The first visit was to get people`s opinions, the second was to book orders.

If their figures are to be believed, they began publication in Jaipur with a circulation of 1.7 lakh. And since then, the paper which now has 19 editions in six states and talks grandly of being second only to the Asahi Shimbun in readership in the world, has followed this market survey approach with every launch. The latest was in February 2002 in Patiala.

The Patrika is 48 years old, the Bhaskar 40. Old dogs learn new tricks when they have to. India`s newspaper revolution has been spurred on by rivalries such as the one in Rajasthan. And its most striking outcome has been localisation of dailies that used to publish only out of state capitals. The Bhaskar walked into Rajasthan strategising in the main market of Jaipur but with a shrewd eye focused on the hinterland. Not just the immediate hinterland, the entire state. It went rural straightaway, rapidly adding new printing centres over the next few years. The Patrika was forced to follow. Today it has 9 editions with 28 different local pullouts. The Bhaskar has 32 different sets of local pages inserted in 10 editions.

These local pages are aimed at a narrow circulation area. In the course of a night, papers intended for different parts of the state are rapidly released one after another with insertions of local news and advertising. The Jaipur printing centre of the Patrika, for instance, apart from four different city editions, prints pages for six districts.