Company Name: The Times of India
Founder (Descendants): Sahu Jain
Editor-in-Chief: Jaideep Bose
The Times of India was originally named as the Bombay Times & The Journal of Commerce and was founded in the year 1838 to serve the British residing in Northern India. The publishing house for the Times group was then Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd. It is the nation’s largest conglomerate in media and marketing and has been serving the needs of the people from pre independence times.
It has the largest circulation of English newspapers across the world. With more than 11,000 employees the English daily has been a great success worldwide.
How it all started
The Bombay Times & the Journal of Commerce first came into existence on November 3, 1938. At first it started off as a biweekly newspaper but since 1850 the biweekly paper was converted into daily newspaper. Later in the yea 1859, it merged with 2 other English dailies namely the Bombay Times and the Standard under the then editor Robert Knight. It was in the year 1861 that the newspaper got more weightage and renamed as what it is now known as The Times of India.
Until 1892 the ownership of the newspaper went in several hands with two Englishmen namely Thomas Bennett and Frank Coleman acquiring the ownership of the newspaper through their newly formed Joint stock Company and named it BCCL that is Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited. There were only 800 employees working in the Company at that time.
In the year 1946, Indian Industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia took over the Company from its British Owners. By that time the Company had consolidated in the Times Group. In the year 1955, he was convicted in prison for embezzlement and during his absence the Company was looked after by his son-in-law Sahoo Shanti Prasad Jain.
Sahoo Jain acquired the Company after a few years and his predecessors began to look after the Company. As such the descendants of Sahoo Jain hold the maximum stake in the Times Group. The Company expanded its business by starting various local editions and TV entertainments to cater to the changing demand of the general public.
Times of India has a total turnover that exceeds a billion dollars at present. The Times group now has the support of over 11,000 employees and 25,000 advertisers and an audience spanning worldwide. The total sales revenue of Times of India group has exceeded $1.5 billion at present.
Times of India’s marketing strategies and the reasons behind its success
The Logo of the newspaper itself signifies power and strength with two elephants facing each other with a crown in between them that signifies royalty. The slogan of the Company is straight and simple, “Let truth Prevail”.
The various marketing strategies adopted by Times of India includes the following. These strong business strategies adopted by the newspaper helped it to widely circulate this English daily all across the nation and even internationally.
- To improve the product quality so as to draw more readers across the nation and worldwide.
- To increase circulation by launching new editions of the newspapers in both English and other regional languages to expand the scope of the paper.
- To cover news relevant for students who are appearing for competitive examinations that need daily general knowledge about the nation and about the recent news updates of happenings around the world. A weekly paper called Ascent is launched for the benefit of job seekers and students.
- To expand the scope of circulation by launching e-paper and mobile papers.
- To invest more in TV advertisements for a wide coverage and increase in the sales margin.
- To invest in social campaigns involving the youth of the nation.
Apart from these the rate of subscriptions per year is kept low at 250 Rs which allows the buyers to opt for combo offers all throughout the year. The price per paper is also kept low at 3 Rs per paper which is lower than the competitors like the Hindustan Times, Economic Times and the Hindu.
Campaign
BCCL and its subsidiary Companies focus on every media platform starting from newspapers to Books, Magazines, TV, Internet, Radio, Event Management, Movies, Music and more. Promotional campaigns are very important for expanding the scope of the newspapers worldwide. Giving the readers discounted offers provides for more promotions of the English daily.
It is very important to get the promotions right. Providing for combo offers for regional newspapers, or providing combo offers for both the advertisers and the buyers at large etc. help in driving the sales margin.
These promotional offers help in enticing new readers to create a brand image of the Company as well as for the newspaper itself. Times of India collaborated with HDFC bank to launch a new program which is called the Times Card. These promotions help to create brand awareness and customer familiarity that reinforces the brand presence all across the nation.
The Times group has other brands like Mumbai Mirror, Maharashtra Times and the Economic Times to cater to the needs of all classes of readers. Starting from entertainment to finance, news from every sector is covered by Times of India.
It also has some owned channels under its brand name which are as follows.
- Zoom TV
- Movies Now
- MN+
- MNX
- Romedy Now
- Times Now
- ET now
- Mirror Now
These channels offer full entertainment to the consumers all across the world.
Conclusion
It is the world’s largest newspaper with a strong brand image. With its large circulation channels this daily newspaper has captured the media strongly providing all kinds of news to the readers. It has a wide circulation of around 4 million and three hundred thousand copies which is the largest for any English daily newspaper in the world leaving its tough competitors like Economic Times and The Hindu behind.
TOI has successfully placed itself as the national newspaper of the country with regional editions spread over different states. This offline circulation is completed by the strong online presence that the Company has launched through its e-Paper domain.
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