Poonam Saxena, Editor, Brunch, Hindustan Times

Prior to becoming editor of Brunch, Poonam Saxena was looking after the Hindustan Times Sunday magazine, which used to be a broadsheet. She has worked with The Asian Age and was a part of its launch team as Features Editor. She looked after its daily feature pages and the Sunday magazine section.

Saxena has also worked with The Pioneer, where she launched the Saturday weekend supplement. An alumnus of St. Stephen's College, she is an M.Phil in History. In conversation with Rummana Ahmed of exchange4media, she talks about the one-year journey of Brunch and what has made it click. Excerpts:

Q. Who are your strongest competitors?

In Delhi, we basically have two or three main English newspapers and their magazine section is in broadsheet format. I suppose you can say that we are competing with the magazine section of every paper but Brunch is very unique.

Q. What was the objective behind launching Brunch? Why did you go in for a magazine format and not a broadsheet format?

The idea was to give some value addition to readers. It was done to give them a really nice Sunday magazine that they can spend time and relax with. The idea was also to give the readers a product that had a certain shelf life. That is why we went in for a magazine format rather than a broadsheet format. In a broadsheet format, you open it in the morning and by evening it is stale. You cannot also pack in that much in a broadsheet format.

Q. One gets the impression that Brunch is not targeted at the standard HT reader. Is it aimed at the richie-rich class ?

Brunch is a lifestyle weekend supplement and when we talk of lifestyle, we perforce talk about trends and what’s new and what’s happening. We try to do that with a lot of humour but the tone is always friendly and the attempt is not to alienate our readers. For example, we will never do a story on the slums in Delhi. On our ‘wellness’ page we will never do a story on kidney transplant. These issues are important but they are addressed in the main paper. Brunch is not the right platform for those stories. The magazine has a strong focus.

We also believe that after people have read Brunch and put it aside, there should be a feel good element and they should have enjoyed what they read. It is not catering to the rich class. It is a lifestyle magazine and that is its focus.

Q. What is the Brunch target readership, or age-profile?

We are definitely looking at working men and women who are upwardly mobile. Brunch is enjoyed by people who travel, who read, who enjoy good food and who enjoy the benefits of education and experience.

Q. How far would you say Brunch has met the objective for which it was launched?

I can only comment on that from the response that we get from readers and the market research and survey that the company has done. I think that the product has really worked because it is light without being frivolous, flippant or vacuous. The magazine has been worked out keeping in mind a few points. First, it is a weekend leisure reading. Second, for us at Brunch, the reader is paramount; whenever we discuss a story idea we always think whether that will interest the reader. At times journalists end up writing for other journalists but for us, catering to the reader is the prime objective and motivation. And finally, we built up a good team of columnists; all the columns have their own following.

Q. What has been the readers’ response to Brunch in its first year?

The response has been very positive and in fact overwhelming. And I don’t think everyone is being polite when they say that they love the magazine. Throughout India people have a strong opinion about newspapers and they are not afraid to air their opinion. We do get criticisms of individual stories. But the overall response has been very good.

Q. Are you planning any change in the product?

Every product has to change to survive and grow. But there is a balancing act that needs to be done, like there are columns that have a following and readers like it. So, you have to retain the familiarity, yet you have to prevent it from becoming predictable. New ideas keep coming up and we will definitely make changes in the design and the content but yet not lose out on the core that the readers have now connected with.

Q. With the kind of response that Brunch has got, do you see it becoming a stand-alone product?

I would love Brunch to have double the number of pages and become a bigger magazine but we will take each step at a time. At the moment Brunch is the USP of HT because it is so different and there is nothing like this in the market. If the branding can make Brunch a stand-alone product at some future date, well, that would be wonderful.

Q. How would you characterise the primary focus of the editorial content of Brunch?

Brunch is for slightly older readers while HT City is targeted at young readers. As far as the content is concerned we are not aspirational to the extent that we alienate our readers. The idea is to connect with the readers.

Q. How do you work on the content to connect with the readers’ psyche?

To connect with the readers you have to think of yourself at one level not as a journalist but as a reader and have to let go of your prejudices. You have to think of what will interest the reader. The editor is bound to leave a stamp of his or her personality on the product but, at the same time, we constantly put ourselves in the place of the reader.