Business Standard increases its focus on MP

The business publication, starting today, will print the Mumbai edition of the newspaper from Bhopal.

The English business daily, Business Standard, in a bid to strengthen its presence in Madhya Pradesh, has started printing the Mumbai edition locally from Bhopal, starting April 29.

This will be Business Standard's (English) first edition to be printed locally in MP. However, Business Standard Hindi has a full-fledged edition in Bhopal, one of the group's first Hindi dailies.

The newspaper, to be printed from Bhopal, will have a cover price of Rs 4 per copy.

Talking about entering MP, Arun Natesh, head, marketing, Business Standard, says, "It was the Delhi edition reaching Bhopal till now but by the time it reached Bhopal, it was late afternoon or evening. For now, we have introduced the Mumbai edition to be printed in Bhopal but going forward, we might migrate to an edition there."

To give a local flavour to the Mumbai edition reaching Bhopal, Business Standard has introduced a local page that will talk about the business in the state. The paper will now reach Bhopal, Indore, Raipur and Nagpur.

Interestingly, in the past, the English daily has followed a similar strategy for many other locations, where it entered the city by printing the central edition locally and later on migrated to an edition. Pune and Kochi editions of the paper began similarly.

Business Standard English is published from 12 centres including Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Pune, Kochi and Bhubaneswar, which is the latest edition. Hindi Business Standard is published from eight centres including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Patna, Lucknow, Bhopal, Chandigarh and Raipur.

For the record, Business Standard is majority-owned by Kotak Mahindra and associate companies, but is run independently through a board of directors, with T N Ninan as its chairman.