Dainik Bhaskar launches Patna edition

The Hindi daily has marked its foray into Bihar with the launch of its Patna edition.

On January 19, DB Corp entered the Bihar market with the launch of the Patna edition of its Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar. With this launch, DB Corp now publishes eight newspapers with 67 editions across 14 states in India. Bihar is the 14th state for the company.

The Patna edition is priced at Rs 2.50 and will include 24 pages. Its editorial team will be headed by Surendar Kishore. In an earlier interview, Girish Agarwal, promoter-director, DB Corp mentioned that the initial print run for the Patna edition will be 1.65-1.7 lakh copies.

Before the launch, DB Corp conducted a two-phased survey in the region, the results of which showed that 91 per cent people of the region preferred an unbiased newspaper, 89 per cent wanted to read political analysis, which they missed in the existing newspapers, 58 per cent were dissatisfied with the look and feel of existing newspapers and 99 per cent wanted a better priced newspaper. The group carried a door-to-door survey in Patna across 338,000 households in the first phase. The second round of survey was to reconnect with those being surveyed, in order to take pre-launch bookings.

DB Corp had launched an OOH campaign across Patna before the launch with themes such as 'Bolo Bihar Bolo' and 'Bedharak Bolo...Aapki Marzi Jaanne Aa Raha Hai ....Dainik Bhaskar'. It used hoardings, kiosks, banners, human signages, auto branding, posters and other formats to reach out to the Patna readers. Some of the other initiatives from the group were Joy of Giving Week, Good Health campaign and others.

Commenting on Dainik Bhaskar's entry in Bihar, Sudhir Agarwal, MD, DB Corp, says, "We are thrilled and excited with a tremendous start to the new year and an overwhelming response to our launch in Bihar. This was truly an exciting challenge in a region with formidable peers. We have been studying the Bihar market, which has a literacy rate of 64 per cent, for long. We sensed and explored the opportunity in Patna that revealed impressive demographic features and high market potential - being the 15th most developed city in India as per GDP, high per capita consumption, and a key agricultural hub with rapid infrastructure growth. It is also the 5th fastest growing city in India and the 21st in the world.

"We unveiled our marketing campaign with bolder creative outdoor branding and a firm goal of igniting the Bhaskar brand in Bihar. Our product has already achieved wide acceptance and we are delighted that Dainik Bhaskar has emerged as a product with very powerful, unbiased content appealing to diverse readership categories. We are committed to making it the most preferred vehicle to participate in and look forward to actively participating in the region's socio-economic progress."

DB Corp publishes eight newspapers with 67 editions, 199 sub editions in four languages (Hindi, Gujarati, English and Marathi) across 14 states in India. Its flagship newspaper Dainik Bhaskar (in Hindi) was established in 1958. Some of its newspaper brands are Dainik Divya Marathi, Business Bhaskar, DB Gold, DB Star and DNA (in Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP) on a franchisee basis.