How Dainik Bhaskar bucked circulation trends in Bihar

While briefing the trade media, Girish Agarwaal, promoter-director, Dainik Bhaskar Group, was pleased. He said, “Expanding the reach of Dainik Bhaskar to all 38 districts of Bihar has been a fulfilling process.” The DB Group has invested Rs 200-crore in print centres, editorial esources and in the launch process in the state. Agarwaal stated that a sample size of 2,085 people, carried out by the Hansa Research to gauge readership position and strengths have reiterated Dainik Bhaskar’s strong position in Bihar. He added, “This is the success of our expansion strategy and the appeal of our product.”

Hansa Research Group undertook a commissioned readership research in Bihar to gauge the readership of Hindi newspapers. The data mapping was on the basis of readership profile, product consumptions, readers’ engagement and brand satisfaction. As per the Hansa readership report, Dainik Bhaskar is at number two position with an average issue readership (AIR) of 9.11 lakhs, while the legacy player leads with AIR of 9.98 lakhs. In Patna edition, Dainik Bhaskar is at number one position with AIR of 5.07- lakh readers.

Readership Engagement

 What is the module for the recent research conducted by Hansa Research, a readership survey report for Bihar…
Girish Agarwaal (GA): The research was conducted across 13 towns in Bihar, with a sample size of 2,085 respondents, varying across age group of 12+ years, gender, all NCCS categories. The research was restricted to the urban towns with one lakh plus population.

GA: This research was of great use for us to know if our efforts have really worked or not. It helps understand as to who are reading Dainik Bhaskar, what kind of profile we have among our readers. I was happy to know that 47% of our readers are women. It tells us that all the efforts of our editorial department to make it a family newspaper have shown results. It has somewhat managed to cut across the various perceptions and assumptions that people have. If you ask anyone from Mumbai about a lady in the town of Bihar, they would think of a woman in kitchen working on chulha and chauka but that is incorrect.

GA: This report has given us a clear indication as to where we stand. Currently, we are at the second spot in Bihar with a gap of 10% with Hindustan which has been leader since many years. We now know that we have to focus ourselves on bridging this gap. In NCCS AB, if you see, our proportion is higher than the other papers. (NCCS AB proportion for Dainik Bhaskar is at 72%; while for Hindustan and Dainik Jagran it is 68% for each). Also when you look at the slide of time spent, that’s an average of 28.4 minutes by our readers.

 Was it a conscious decision to not include towns with less than one lakh population in this survey?
GA: We could have included such centres as well but it is very exhaustive and time-consuming exercise. It will take around six to nine months to conduct that survey as well. So that’s why we decided to go to a town with more than one lakh population, as it represents more than 70% of our niche audience. It’s the same for any other newspaper.

 Since Indian Readership Survey (IRS) is supposed to be a quarterly thing, is this an exercise you are going to conduct again?
GA: I would wait for IRS now because we are in the month of August and IRS should be published by January or March 2019.

 While the new IRS 2017 came in January 2018 why was there a need to commission a separate research? Is there any other research that you are commissioning?
GA: No. IRS will take at least nine months to come up with the new report. We completed the launch of the Bihar edition in January this year, so we thought we must ask a research agency to validate the numbers.

GA: We have invested close to Rs 200-crore in Bihar. So, yes, it is an important market for us. If you look at it from the publisher’s point of view, this market is bigger than Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan or  Gujarat, all these states have population of around six crore. The population of Bihar is 11 crore. So from the perspective of reach and consumption, Bihar is a huge market.

But adex for Bihar is not as high…
GA: Adex is still low because the potential of Bihar from advertising and purchasing perspective is lesser as compared to other markets. But the market has to change. In terms of spending in advertising, Bihar and Jharkhand is a Rs 500-crore market with a population of 13-crore. To put this into perspective, Rajasthan is a Rs 800-crore market with a population of around six crore. So, Bihar should at least be Rs 1,000-crore market.

Jaipur Plant

Marketers and the agencies look at IRS to get the data. Will the publication be able to convince the agencies and advertisers about this research?
GA: Any research is indicative. When an advertiser is approached, he is going to cross-check with the market through his dealers, branch offices and regional managers. He will get this validated.

With an investment of Rs 200-crore, what kind of footprint do you have? What kind of outreach and how many centres?
GA: We have a presence in all the 38 districts in Bihar and have four printing centres in Bihar with nine printing presses located at these four locations. This way we have not missed out on a single geographical space, big or small, in Bihar.

What about Jharkhand? Is that an important market for you?
GA: Yes, that too is an important market for us. We are present in Jharkhand since 2010, and have almost two lakh copies in Jharkhand and three print centres at Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad.

What are the lessons that you are picking up from the states like these — Jharkhand, Bihar, Saurashtra, and Eastern Maharashtra….
GA:These are traditionally under-represented markets and in terms of readership one important lesson that emerges is that these markets were earlier ignored by almost everybody under the pretext of looking only at the bigger markets, but now the reality is that these are the markets that offer growth.

How much of the advertising space comprises local advertising?
GA: Almost 65% is local advertising and 35% is national advertising.

Is it better to have lesser dependence on national advertising?
GA: Of course. The reason is simple. The national advertiser looks across India. But a retailing guy, he is just looking to target readers in Bihar. He releases his advertisement in the morning and by evening; his goods have to be sold. So think of a guy who is selling consumer items like geyser, washing machines. It is not a brand building exercise for him. The advantage is that he is not looking at other media options in markets. He is simply looking at his motive to sell the stuff by evening.

 The cost of retail advertising on a print medium when you compare it with a national advertiser…
GA: The cost is same for both, but the national advertiser does get benefit for the large volume and pan-India buy.

What are the growth plans for the number of editions?
GA: We don’t have to increase the number of editions over here, because geographically these printing centres are located at such a place that they will be able to cover the entire region of Bihar much faster. Unlike Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan, where the size of the state is huge, for us it is easier to cover the whole state of Bihar from our four locations.

GA: For the past five months, the newsprint price has gone up by 25-40%. So it is holding people back from growing. In fact, according to an announcement from another newspaper, it has cut down five lakh copies, which make up for 5% newspaper copies. But we are not doing so. We believe these things would happen once in eight to ten years, but we need to focus on growth and we will continue to do so. Last year, we were at 51 lakh copies, this year we are at 59 lakh copies. So there is 15% growth in a year. And we will continue to expand and increase circulation.

Indore Machine Hall

GA: The report of Hansa Research has boosted our confidence in terms of increasing the circulation. We will make all possible additional efforts to further strengthen our Bihar position.

GA: Currently, we are all pricing the newspaper copy at the same cost. When we entered this market, we were at three rupees and the competition lowered the price before our launch. Inadvertently, that turned out to be beneficial for us as everyone started talking about us.

GA: If five lakh copies have grown in the market, it’s almost 30% of the market. So 30% growth in the market in one year’s time is a pretty big thing. And we have seen in the past, wherever newspapers have worked together to grow the market, the market has responded. Look at Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana. When we launched in Haryana in 2000, nobody knew it was a market. The population of the state was two and a half crore at that time. So we launched the newspaper there, and we became the largest paper. Today, Haryana is a big market for us.

GA: From anybody to everybody. Right from Honda Motors, to Skoda, Volkswagen, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj, Samsung, LG, Videocon, Hindustan Unilever, Dabur and every other company that sells its product in Bihar. For every company, irrespective of the category Bihar is at least a 4% market. It means a company like Tata Motors must be selling 4% of its total production in Bihar. This 4% should have been 8 to 10% and that’s what we are going to work with these companies to see how we can tap the potential in this market.

GA: What we are saying is that with the growth in print reach, the advertisers need to relook at these markets. Focus on these markets. In fact, it is an opportunity for the advertisers to get 50% growth in the market. When a newspaper can grow by 70% - 80%, then an automobile company or an electronic company can do so too. Print is growing in India and even the latest reports of IRS and Audit Bureau Circulation suggest the same.

GA: Digital has a very small reach in Bihar.

What are the vehicles that you have used to expand the outreach and promotion in Bihar?
GA: The key vehicle is the door-to-door survey. It’s a very expensive proposition. For us, the cost factor is fine as long as we are getting the job done. Spending Rs 10-crore on television campaign doesn’t come close to providing us with the kind of outreach that we have managed in Bihar. It’s worked out pretty well for us.

GA: The difference is in the dialect. So people speak in a particular dialect but the language is Hindi. But to take care of that requirement, the local newspapers in that market are doing the editorial changes in that particular dialect. For example, in Hindi, we call the number of people vyakti, log but in Rajasthan it is called jane. So in Bihar, if there is a dialect in a particular market, then we will be addressing that dialect.

GA: We are doing it all over again. In Rajasthan, if you look at the Audit Bureau Circulation report, we were at 14 lakh copies three years ago. The last report came out and it said that we were at 15 and a half lakh copies and hopefully the new report would further improve our circulation strength in Rajasthan. So it means we have grown by around two lakh copies in Rajasthan alone in three years. A lot is credited to speaking to our readers and asking them what they like to read. Our complete focus is on our readers. The reader’s habit is changing. It was said that people won’t buy books and everybody would be on Kindle. But suddenly there is a 30% growth in books in the last few years. It only means that what people are saying is that Kindle is alright, but we engage to read a book.

GA: The RNI report validates our growth model and well-strategised, reader-centric expansion plans that have seen us transform from a local player to one with a national footprint. We are excited about the future and are determined to play a more active role as an enabler of India’s socio-economic transformation.