| Mid-Day Multimedia, the publisher of afternoon daily Mid Day, and Bennett, Coleman & Co (BCCL), the publisher of The Times of India (ToI) and The Economic Times, have entered into a strategic tie-up to support each other in different markets.
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| The tie-up or the business co-operation agreement will straddle three important areas – advertising sales, distribution and printing facilities. Mid-Day Multimedia Chief Financial Officer Manajit Ghoshal said BCCL was picking up 6.65 per cent stake in the listed company.
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| A couple of years ago, the Times group has a small stake in Mid-day Multimedia, which was later diluted.
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| Better utilisation of spare printing capacity is the first thing that the two companies are targeting. At present, Mid-Day outsources the printing job for its Bangalore edition. But, Ghoshal said, “Now, we can explore the possibility of printing the paper at the ToI press.”
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| The two media companies are also planning to reduce costs by placing combined orders for newsprint. Besides utilising each other’s strengths in distribution in different markets, the two groups hope to go for combined advertising sales.
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| The combo offers are usually at competitive rates and draw more advertisers.
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| A media planner remarked that since the two players were in the non-competing segments – Mid Day is an afternoon daily, while ToI is a morning paper – they could grow their ad share as a combined entity.
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| Media experts say that for the Times group, such strategic tie-ups make sense as they face a real threat of competition from foreign newspapers as well as regional newspapers with national ambitions. “Competition in print is heating up and it makes sense to have alliances,” said one of them.
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| BCCL, most felt, was utilising its spare cash to pick up stakes in other newspaper groups to safeguard its interests. Before Mid-Day Multimedia, the company picked up a small stake in Sandesh in Gujarat and bought out Vijay Times and Vijay Karnataka in Bangalore. BCCL Executive Director Ravi Dhariwal was unavailable for comments.
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| To drive their radio (Radio One) and newspaper businesses, Mid-day Multimedia’s promoters are investing Rs 22.56 crore, while BCCL will pump in Rs 21.11 crore in the company. |
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