Mumbai newspaper wars: the battle for the fittest

That the Hindustan Times has the Times of India rattled as far as the Mumbai editions are concerned is no surprise. In the last measurement of readership published by the Indian Readership Survey for Q1 2011, Hindustan Times registered a growth of 12.2 percent over the previous quarter, establishing itself as the No 2 English broadsheet in the city, with an Average Issue Readership (AIR) of 6.88 lakh. Times of India grew 3.5 percent, albeit from a much larger base, to reach an AIR of 16.05 lakh.

What is ominous though, is that Hindustan Times has grown 28 percent from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011, from an AIR of 5.38 lakh to 6.88 lakh.

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

Mumbai Mirror (which is a different size - a compact) has, in the same period, de-grown from 8.11 lakh to 7.69 lakh.

There must be something that Hindustan Times is doing right.

While the newspaper is a ’national’ newspaper - and seen, when the Mumbai edition was launched in July 2005, as a ‘Delhi’ paper - HT’s attention to local issues has seen them assiduously shed the Delhi tag. Whether it’s potholes or Ganesh Chaturthi or the monsoons or the water worries, HT has devoted space and resources to in-depth coverage.

As does the Times of India - or any other paper in Mumbai. These are all issues that affect citizens of the city, so it’s no great surprise that these issues gain attention. These are all news-led issues, issues that arise every year.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e: Design and road presence compared

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

It’s when the issue being discussed is research-led or investigation-led and one sees two or more newspapers devoting resources and space at more or less the same time that it’s unusual.

[caption id=“attachment_69016” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“HT’s fitness report on Mumbai”]  [/caption]

Hindustan Times announced, on 20 August, that they would publish a fitness report on Mumbai on 25 August dubbed “Mission Fitter Mumbai”, one would have not expected to see a similar feature in any other newspaper - and Hindustan Times would have ‘owned’ the issue.

In what seems to be a reactionary move, the empire - The Times of India - quickly cobbled together content to fill full pages yesterday and today focusing on “Keeping Mumbai Fit”.

The Hindustan Times fitness report is an in-depth study of the state of health of the city, while, so far, The Times of India’s Keeping Mumbai Fit page is just that - a page devoted to fitness.

Launching Mission Fitter Mumbai this morning, HT promises two months of focus on the state of health of citizens of Mumbai.

[caption id=“attachment_69023” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“TOI’s reactionary move -Keeping Mumbai Fit.”]  [/caption]

The Times of India obviously sees a risk in HT’s owning this space and the leader has been provoked into aping a follower - in the decision to do a similar feature at the same time and in the decision to christen it similarly.

Hindustan Times would be smiling. Car rental company Avis once said, in an award winning campaign, “We’re number two, so we try harder”. Here’s a case of the number one, The Times of India, doing the harder work.

Disclosure: Firstpost is owned by Network18, a media group that competes with Hindustan Times and Times of India in several media spaces.