Sakal Times set to launch on May 7

MEDIA: Sakal group also runs English papers like the 'Maharashtra Herald' and 'Gomantak Times' .

Sakal Times, the English daily from the Sakal group, will be launched on May 7, the auspicious "Akshay Tritiya" day according to the Hindu calendar. The first edition of the newspaper, branded Sakal Times, is being launched in Pune, the hometown of the Sakal group, which owns Maharashtra's number two Marathi daily, Sakal. To be sure, it is not the first time that the newspaper group is dabbling in English.

It runs two English papers "" The Maharashtra Herald in Pune and Gomantak Times in Goa.

 

Abhijit Pawar, the 36-year-old managing director of the company and nephew of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, refused to share the details of his business plans but said that the group "will do whatever needs to be done to make Sakal Times a national English newspaper brand".

However, when it launches in Pune in the coming week, the newspaper will have to compete with an entrenched player "" The Times of India from the Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) "" which is said to have a circulation of 220,000 copies in that market.

Sakal Times executives claim that the actual number is much less in the city of Pune. "We assure you that our print run will be as much as, if not more, that of the market leader," said Pawar.

However, independent media marketing consultants say that Sakal Times is expected to launch with an initial print run of 125,000 copies for Pune city alone.

"Considering that it took ToI nearly five years to touch 200,000 copies, Sakal Times has set an ambitious target for itself," says an advertising sales expert based in Pune. The Indian Express is said to do about 45,000 copies in the market.

Sakal Times will also have to compete with ToI, which currently corners almost Rs 100 crore of the Rs 120 crore advertising generated by English newspapers in this market.

So has Sakal Times set itself a tough target? "Pawar has a vision and is an ideas' person. If he has got the right team, he will make it," said a former Sakal group employee.

Besides, being on its hometurf is a big advantage. It owns a established distribution system as Sakal (Marathi) is the number one paper in Pune.

For the product and content, Pawar chose international newspaper designer Mario Garcia, who has designed the financial daily Mint and Telugu daily Sakshi in the recent past, in addition to The Hindu earlier.

For content, he hired the services of APCA (Asia-Pacific Communication Associates), the media firm that operates newspapers in Nepal. APCA's Dilip Padgaonkar and former ToI editor has been appointed as the editorial director and Anikendra Nath Sen (of APCA) is the editor-in-chief of the paper.

"However, we are working on a build-operate-transfer model. Except for the two of us, the entire editorial team of the newspaper is on Sakal's pay rolls. We are only helping in launching the paper," said Sen.

Sen said that Sakal Times will be positioned as a serious newspaper. "We belong to a school of journalism that faded away in the 1990s.

With international newspaper brands like The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal looking at India, serious print will stage a comeback," he said.

But will an English newspaper with a name like Sakal Times sell?

Pawar said the decision was taken after a survey in Pune where readers said that they wanted an English product from the Sakal stable.

But will it make sense to a reader outside Maharashtra? "Why not? 'Sakal' means morning and most people know that. Besides, if a name like 'Google', which has no meaning, can become one of the biggest media brands in the world, why not Sakal?" asks Sen.

Initially a 32-page newspaper, Sakal Times will have four sections. The national and international affairs section will be common to all the editions (the second edition is expected in Goa as, like Pune, Sakal group is familiar with the market) with part two of the paper being sourced locally.

The third section will consist of a 16-page (eight broadsheets) tabloid size magazine, which will be a part of the paper every day "" from Monday to Saturday. Sakal Times will also boast of a separate 8-page business section. The company will introduce a separate Sunday paper later.

Considering that the entire section on national and international affairs is being done out of Delhi, will the paper hit the stands in Delhi soon? "It is a tough decision. Delhi is a very tough market though it has its advantages. If we do a Delhi edition, it will be more for influence than business," said Sen.