K Yatish Rajawat, Editor-in-Chief, Business Bhaskar

K Yatish Rajawat is the Editor-in-Chief of Business Bhaskar, published by the Dainik Bhaskar Group of Publications. Business Bhaskar’s growth has been phenomenal. Today, it is the largest Indian language business newspaper. Rajawat conceptualised, developed and rolled out Business Bhaskar in more than 17 cities, seven editions and six states in a record time of just three months.

He has a rich and diverse professional experience, along with the privilege of working with leading media conglomerates in India. Prior to joining Business Bhaskar, Rajawat had worked with Businessworld as an Associate Editor and with The Economic Times as Editor - Knowledge & Technology. He had also worked with The Hindu Business Line. An authority in his industry, Rajawat has bagged several awards, including the IT Journalist of the Year (2003) and Top Five Achievers in India Award (2004).

In this interview with exchange4media’s Swapna Rahul Shah, Rajawat speaks at length about the Indian newspaper industry and the regional versus English newspaper divide. He also talks about Business Bhaskar’s growth over the years.



Q. Where do you see the Indian language newspaper industry five years down the line?

Five years is a long time, the first few years, as you know, are going to be bumpy economically. But as the center of gravity in the world is shifting globally from the US and Europe to Asia, there is a shift in India, too, especially on the media front. Foreign multinationals have started understanding India much better now, and as their penetration rates increase, they are encountering the Indian language media.

European companies were the first to understand the difference between the English media and Indian language media. European companies know from experience that if they have to sell something in Germany, they will have to advertise and sell it through German newspapers. They will not use English newspapers to advertise in Germany. Similarly, companies are realising that if they want to reach consumers in India, they will have to use the Indian language media. The choice of a newspaper by an advertiser is getting more sophisticated and is not being determined by what the CEO or marketing officers read, but is based on data of what is the country and what are his potential consumers reading. Successful Indian companies have always known this, but now this is being accepted really fast by advertisers. Media management companies that are looking for better results are also choosing the Indian newspaper media. This trend will shape the face of the Indian media industry, advertising will move away from the niche English newspapers to the mass media represented by the Indian language newspapers.

Q. Has there been any impact of the global slowdown on Business Bhaskar?

Yes, the news flow from international centers has increased quite a bit. On a serious note, we are a local newspaper and we are more affected by what happens in the local market, and the slowdown in the Indian economy certainly influences and affects us.

Q. How do you maintain a balance between content and advertisements? What is the ad-edit ratio for Business Bhaskar?

Currently, we are leaning more heavily on the content side. We are a new paper and we are looking at building a loyal readership. The quality and quantity of content is much higher in our paper at this stage.

Q. How do you define your target readers?

Our target audience is SEC A readers who are interested in business, investment and knowledge. This is an untapped audience, which is not comfortable with English language business papers as they do not meet his requirements.

Q. What are your future plans for Business Bhaskar? What are the other states that you are looking at for expansion, and when?

As they say in television, keep watching this space for further developments!

Q. How do you perceive the prevailing scenario in the newspaper industry?

The economy is slowing down much faster than anyone had ever anticipated, and companies have had to cut down the excesses of the last few years. Companies at large and some media companies in particular took investment decisions based on the assumption that growth will continue indefinitely. Companies, which have a long term strategy and did not plan only for high growth economy, continue to invest. Business Bhaskar continues to grow and so does Dainik Bhaskar. A sign of our commitment to growth is that the group launched DNA in Bangalore in December 2008.

Q. What are your views on the regional newspaper industry?

Firstly, I don’t like the term ‘regional’ or even vernacular newspapers, because this industry is neither regional nor is it vernacular. It’s not regional because most of the large newspaper groups like Dainik Bhaskar span multiple states and cover several cities in multiple Indian languages. Vernacular is a term whose dictionary meaning is derived from ‘native’, it sounds very parochial and colonial to call a Tamil or a Hindi newspaper as a native language newspaper. I think, a better term for this industry would be to call it the Indian language newspaper industry, or better still, Indian newspaper industry and call the English newspapers as the English newspaper industry. As it is, only 1 per cent of Indians read English newspapers, while 3.5 per cent of the Indian population or 35 million people read a Dainik Bhaskar everyday. The total readership of the Indian language media will be several times that of English. This important fact is ignored even by journalists due to some strange and snobbish reasons.

Q. How are advertisers responding to Business Bhaskar?

Business Bhaskar has been very well accepted by advertisers as it fills a gap for them that no other media vehicle could fulfill. Insurance companies, banks, mobile and hardware companies have realised that if they have to reach the SEC A consumer in more than 17 cities, there is no better alternative than Business Bhaskar. Even local advertisers know that instead of spreading their money in a larger publication, if they were to spend it on Business Bhaskar, they would be able to reach the crème in cities like Chandigarh, Indore, Amritsar, Raipur or Faridabad and 12 other such fast growing cities. These cities have low costs of living and very high disposable incomes, and Business Bhaskar is the only business newspaper here. Smart advertisers have quickly realised that this newspaper is read by SEC A readers.

Q. What is your USP and content strategy for Business Bhaskar?

We are the only Hindi business newspaper that covers issues that are of use to our readers. We are not a translation of any English business newspaper. Business Bhaskar is conceptualised and developed everyday, taking into account what our readers need. I don’t think that I need to tell anybody that Indian language readers are different from English language readers.

The newspaper is localised according to the need of the reader and his city and state. We don’t believe that the whole country is one single reader. If my reader in a city is more interested in cotton and steel prices, etc., he gets that information in more depth in his edition. To ensure that we are able to localise the content, we have recruited the most experienced journalists in these cities.

Q. Who do you think are your strongest competitors?

We don’t think we have any direct competitors. We are a paper that has been developed and conceptualised for our readers, while other Hindi business newspapers are translations of their English version. I would simply say that we do respect our competitors.