The Pioneer Winds Up Mumbai Edition
The Mumbai edition of The Pioneer will cease publication from tomorrow. The decision to wind up the edition has been taken due to a cash crunch.
The Mumbai edition, launched amid much hype in April 1996, was expected to generate enough revenue to sustain the New Delhi and Lucknow editions of the newspaper.
Editor Chandan Mitra confirmed to Business Standard that a decision had been take to close down the Mumbai edition of the newspaper.
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The decision was a hard one, but it was felt that the accruing losses of the Mumbai edition were not sustainable, he said.
It has been decided to concentrate on the newspapers core areas: Lucknow and Delhi.
According to the annual report of Ballarpur Industries Ltd (BILT), the losses incurred by The Pioneer Ltd in 1995-96 stood at Rs 42,69,67,624, up from the 1994-95 figure of Rs 32,49,87,811. The Pioneer Ltd is a subsidiary of BILT, controlled by L M Thapar.
The Thapars have been tight lipped on the issue of a buyout of The Pioneer, but rumours of its takeover have been doing the rounds for several months now. Among those said to have shown an interest is a chartered accountant-turned media baron, who, in the 1970s, revolutionised news magazine journalism.
Sources in The Pioneer denied that there was any move by the Thapars, especially the nephews of L M Thapar, to hawk the company.
The Pioneer Ltd had generated advertisement revenue worth Rs 792.48 lakh in 1995-96, up from the 1994-95 figure of Rs 708.66 lakh. However, the Thapars last year decided to hive off the Hindi daily, Swatantra Bharat, and sell the title to an Uttar Pradesh-based businessman, as it was felt that the group could not sustain the Hindi daily.
The Pioneer was first published from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh over a hundred years ago. In a dramatic change of base, it shifted to Lucknow overnight at the beginning of the century.
The newspaper has enjoyed the services of some of the most famous names in the profession. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once worked as its war correspondent. Rudyard Kipling too spent some years with the newspaper in Lucknow.