For long, the business daily seg-ment in the country was synony- mous with the awesome foursome: The Economic Times, Business Line, Business Standard and Financial Express, dominating the market in that order. However, with the launch of HT's Mint, the competition gets a new flavor. Hindustan Times Group, which is more known for its rivalry with the Bennett & Coleman & Co. Ltd., and the fierce battle between its Hindustan Times and TOI launches the pink paper (as the business dailies are more popularly referred to) in collaboration with the big daddy of all pink (and probably white dailies too), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), one of the most prestigious capital market publications in the world. No points for guessing that it is the lucrative advertising revenue coupled with strong growth potential that tempted the media giant to launch Mint. Starting February 1, Mint, designed by Mario Garcia and sporting a convenient Berliner size, will be available from Monday through Saturday, initially in New Delhi and Mumbai. Garcia has designed more than 500 newspapers worldwide, including the WSJ. Launching the business daily on February 1, this year, Shobhana Bhartia, HT's Media Vice-Chairperson, said, "Mint is constructed around Indian business and economy and the way it is impacting the world and captures the trends of the world for India to leverage."
While the tie-up with the US-based WSJ is definitely a big plunge for the Indian publishing giant, a section of experts express concern that it might be a case of `last in, first out', since all the existing business dailies are well established and well-entrenched by now. In essence, is there enough space for another pink paper to grow? In the meanwhile, the group has also launched the online edition of the paper as Livemint.com. The top brass feel that the online edition, along with the printed version is likely to attract more revenues with its new integrated advertising opportunities. To begin with, the readers welcomed the new daily with an initial circulation of around 80,000 copies in Delhi and Mumbai, where the daily is scheduled to be available six days a week. |
