I had badly wanted to write a review on The Times of India for long, not of the praising flowery verbalization, but some hard hitting the nail on the head types. Nonetheless, when I have their parent group at purview, my long felt writing spirits are back to its peak.
So here we go.
The Bennet and Coleman Co better known as the Times Group, is the biggest media house in the nation with reported turnover of around Rs 2000 crores a year. They have a distinguished presence across diverse mediums like Print Media, Web portals, Radio, Music labels and some presence in financial sector. Their presence, rather the better word is dominance, in the print media is legendary and the way they have leveraged their presence in certain segments and extended that domination to newer horizons is worth many a business lessons. They have created some best known business models in the popular media like Radio Mirchi , Times Music, and the Indiatimes site. Some of India’s best known icons of entertainment is linked with the Times Group , like the annual Filmfare Awards, the Femina Miss India shows and plethora of entertainment events happening accross the country and the globe. All in all, a portfolio of names that has inspired many generations with nostalgia, awed the youth with sheer euphoria and carried the nations’ sentiments on its pages over the years.
The Times Group has a proprietary stake by the Jains of Delhi and is currently chaired by Ms Indu Jain and Mr Vineet Jain, is the Managing director. It’s corporate headquarters are in Mumbai and the newspaper division is headquartered at Bahadur Shah Marg , New Delhi, the street made famous by the hustling and bustling of premier fourth estate of India. The following are the big names from the group
The Times Of India : Started appearing in 1861, after M/s Bennet and Coleman formed the enterprise in 1838. Undoubtedly the most well known newspaper brand, made famous over the years by columnists like Khuswant Singh(was the editor in ’60s), Kuldeep Nayar, The common man by R K Laxman etc. It’s published from Delhi, Mumbai (editor - Aayaz Menon), Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, kolkata, Hyderabad and Patna. The newspaper had a distinct aristocratic feel since the begining and has adopted well to position itself as the happening paper for the young and upcoming Indians(unfortunately with not so favourable consequence on quality;but then more on that later).
The Economic Times: Premier business daily. Its’ coverage of markets has been extraordinary, plus regular feature on Sectors, Brand Equity, Companies etc. It covers events like the Business Leader of the Year, Bizquiz etc.
Femina: Started in ’60s, aimed at the new age women of that era. Perhaps the first exclusive womens’ magazine, I remeber as a kid, my aunts waiting impatiently for every issue and myself provided the oppurtinity to peep into its pages.
Before being a cover-to-cover fashion magazine, Femina did use to have few nice articles, and lest we forget its role in portraying the beautiful Indian women in the world stage through the Miss India contests.
Filmfare: The heartbeat that joins popular Indian cinema and Hindi films in particular. Started in early ’50s, it’s pages covered eras of celluloid history and became synonymous with quality coverage of the silver screen. the Filmfare Awards started in ’53 with just five awards and handful audience is nowadays a mega event with huge sponsorship and mega reach ( again many issues of contention, more on that later).
Radio Mirchi, Times FM, Times music most of these are barely 10 years old and are an effort to catch the generation X, Y, Z. The radio channels have come due to governments policy of delicensing since ’96 and have become immensely popular due to some smart programming.
In addition its website https://indiatimes.com is one of the most visited portals on web (with arguable contents), and its’ music retail chain Planet M has established itself as the onestop music store.
The well known media house also had its share of hiccups : in mid ’80s with Filmfare, then again in early ’90s with TOI , when they were forced to come up with Glossies( ironically Saturday Times was scrapped again) , then recently with NRS, a supposedly fake survey. But then it has maintained its dominance in all the sectors it has been onto, sometimes creating landmarks for other to follow. I personally am not a big subscriber to most of its’ publications but always impressed by its sheer strength.
May it live ever so strongly!