Daily Thanthi to launch English newspaper 'DT Next' on Nov 1

Launch of another paper might trigger a price war in the advertisement market

Daily Thanthi Group, which runs Tamil newspaper Daily Thanti (DT), is set to launch a new English Newspaper 'DT Next'. The 74-year-old Group's Tamil Newspaper Daily Thanthi is one of the largest newspapers in the country and claims to have a readership base of around 82.83 lakh. The group, which also has a 24-hours news channel, is also planning to float a GEC channel.

Several calls and messages to Bala Adithyan, Executive Director of the company, who belongs to the founder family have not been responded to.

Sources confirmed that DT Next will be launched on November 1 in Chennai. The Chennai edition will be given free initially to Daily Thanthi's Tamil Newspaper readers at free of cost.

Besides, Daily Thanthi morning tamil paper, the Group also runs an evening Tamil newspaper Malai Malar and magazines including Rani Muthu, Rani, Gokulam Kadhir, an FM channel Hello FM and 24 hours news channel Daily Thanthi, which was acquired from NDTV Hindu.

The newspaper roped in Times of India’s Ninan Thariyan to head its new division as CEO. He was with Times of India (TOI) nearly for 36 years and roped in some of the senior executives from TOI and Deccan Chronicle Group.

A senior official from one of the rival's group said that Daily Thanthi's foray into English will be a challenge and it will be an interesting also. The key is content and that would be a major challenge for Daily Thanthi and it cannot replicate the model and journalism of Tamil and it will not work.

When asked whether the Group has space in the market, which already got four English dailies, he said that content will be the differentiator. The state is one of the most urbanised in the country, which DT may leverage along with its Tamil readership.

DT Next has already created a price war as far as advertising concerned. The new paper has quoted Rs 615 per square centimeter for regular display as against Rs 1,610 of Times of India (ToI). For full page Rs 6 lakh as compared to Rs 27 lakh of TOI and Rs 35 lakh of The Hindu, Rs 3 lakh for half page as compared to Rs 13 lakh of TOI and Rs 16 lakh of The Hindu and for double spread Rs 10 lakh as against Rs 57 lakh of TOI and Rs 60 lakh of The Hindu.

Daily Thanthi has with 17 editions, including Dubai.

It has a circulation of 4.95 lakh copies in Chennai (ABC July-December 2014) with a readership of 16.74 lakh readers and Daily Thanthi boasts of an all-India readership of 8.83 lakh (IRS 2013).

Among metros, Chennai market has least number of English Newspapers compared to other metros.

In Chennai currently there are four major brands including TOI, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and Indian Express. In Kolkata, there are six national brands, Delhi and Mumbai have six brands.

Among southern states, Bengaluru has the most number of English daily newspapers (seven).