People’s Group has launched its Hindi daily, People’s Samachar, in Bhopal followed by Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior. It also has English weekly to its credit, named People’s Post, from Delhi. With this launch, People’s Group, which is an established name in education and healthcare, has forayed into the field of media.
People’s Samachar has a unique seven-colour scheme for seven days, establishing itself as the fastest growing Hindi daily of Madhya Pradesh. It is headed by CEO Capt Ruchi Vijaywargia. A pilot by profession, Vijaywargia belongs to a family that has been into successful business for the past two generations. When asked as to why the group had decided to venture into media, she said, “We felt that besides the education and health sectors, having a media company helps to broaden our approach and also provides employment to our students from our media college.”
Vijaywargia also informed that the daily was being positioned as ‘Naya Zamana, Naya Akhbar’ (New era, new newspaper), and is targetting chief wage earners, the youth and home-makers (SEC ABC), in the broad 16-60 age group. It claims to differ from its competitors with more pictorial, rather than text-based, representation of news.
People’s Group is a Rs 1,500 crore conglomerate having business interests in hotels, real estate, malls, media and entertainment. Talking about the future, Vijaywargia said that soon People’s Samachar would be launched in Raipur and Bilaspur in the first quarter of 2010. In future, the group plans to enter the entertainment industry with People’s Films Division, acquiring the rights of some 30 feature films under its banner and will also launch the production of a new feature film soon. Multiplexes in its upcoming mall are also on the anvil.
