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The freebie fest continues for Mumbai readers. July 14 is when the Mumbai edition of the Hindustan Times (HT) is born (sharing a birthday with Polly Bergen and Victoria Ingrid Alicea Desiree — so the HT Style informs us), and you get more than a newspaper. Here's what your Rs 2.50 gets you: The newspaper (24 pages) + HT Style (8 pages) + Spend (Hindustan Times Luxury Magazine, 32 pages) + Mumbai Magic (Hindustan Times Collector's Edition Series, 32 pages). The total is an agonisingly four short of a century, which is The Times of India daily minimum score (with the free Mumbai Mirror, that is).
But that's talking quantity.
Let's talk content.
As we go to press, we have seen only the first day of HT Mumbai, and one gets the distinct impression that
the paper we see today will be impossible to sustain, and one is sure that HT is well aware of the
impossibility. Today's edition has but one objective: to establish that The Hindustan Times can, indeed,
understand Mumbai. There has obviously been an extremely conscious decision to identify with Mumbai,
through most pages and most columns. The front page (reproduced alongside) has all of four stories - three
of which refer to Mumbai. ALL the front page pointers take the reader to Mumbai stories — including the
super-coup: Ratan Tata interview. The nation pages are misnamed for the day — more than half the space
Continued from page 1 is devoted to stories related to Mumbai and Maharashtra.
Want more? The lead edit discusses Bal Thackeray, while the lead story in HT Style ponders over the
future of Smita Thackeray. One of the two freebies, a large format all colour magazine called Mumbai Magic
(beautifully produced - one wishes the photographs aligned properly at the gutter) is, obviously, all
about Mumbai. Spend, one of four monthly colour mags, tells you where you can get rid of your hard earned
wealth - obviously, in Mumbai! An overdose of Mumbai? So what? This is the first impression, and first impressions count. The Mumbaification of HT will certainly be less pronounced from the second issue, but there's a lot more going for the paper. For the moment, what is clear is that HT can shed the Delhi looks and wear a Mumbai mask - with ease.
While HT Mumbai will be a Mumbai paper (as opposed to a facsimile edition of a Delhi paper), has marketing
exhausted all of editorial's bullets? The HT Leadership Series gets a great launch pad with Ratan Tata's interview (and the Tata's show of solidarity with HT reinforced by ads from Tata Steel and Taj in the paper) - what do you do next? On another plane, a feature - as opposed to news - story as the front page
lead raises expectations that cannot be met on a day-to-day basis. Especially if the lead story uses up two more trump cards in Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan, with a joker in the form of Dawood Ibrahim thrown in. By the paper's own admission, the expose refers to conversations between Rai and Khan in 2001. Supported
by a story on India TV, this is one big entry story. One can sense the marketing need for making a dramatic
entry into the city, but this is a gimmick at best. The test for the paper will start from the morrow,
when it deals with the real world and has to select news stories for the front page - a page, which will
play a large role in the days to come.
With the extent of localisation of HT, the consumer's choice is now manifold. The English newspaper reader,
limited a couple of month ago to choosing from The Times of India, Mid-Day and the Indian Express, now
has two more to choose from: Mumbai Mirror and Hindustan Times. In a fortnight from now, DNA will
make its presence felt, and the final battle for Mumbai will begin. How does HT stack up in this scenario?
For starters, HT is already a brand. It is an 80-year old paper, and with the mobility of the modern Indian,
there are a number of (current) Mumbaikars for whom HT was, for some part of their lives, a habit. To others,
those who travel regularly to the capital city, the HT masthead is one that they are familiar with. This is
an advantage that HT will enjoy over both the Mirror and DNA, and time will tell what numbers
To read more, buy a copy of Impact dated July 18-24, 2005