Mid Day Multimedia is out to celebrate its 27th anniversary on June 27, 2006 in style. The Group will be launching its Bangalore edition on June 27, while Mumbaikars can look forward to a jumbo 264-page special issue to mark the occasion. What’s more, cyber buffs can log on to Mid Day’s e-paper from tomorrow.
When asked why the group had chosen Bangalore as its next destination, Tariq Ansari, MD, Mid Day Multimedia, replied, “To launch a new product, the target audience has to be there in sufficient numbers. From that point of view, we found Bangalore perfectly suitable.”
Mid Day Bangalore will be priced at Rs 2 compared to the Mumbai edition, which is priced at Rs 3. The group is initially targeting a circulation of 50,000 in the Southern metro.
Elaborating on the e-paper that Mid Day is launching from June 27, Ansari said, “The e-paper will be free to access. The revenue model will be primarily advertising based and then we will see how it goes. Initially, we are launching the Mumbai edition, and subsequently will add the Bangalore edition as well.”
Mid Day is also coming out with a mega anniversary issue on Tuesday, which will have six supplements, each highlighting fours hours of a day. The special issue will cover Mumbai round the clock at usual places in odd hours and odd places in usual hours, exhibiting the soul of the megapolis. “It’s the single largest issue in terms of number of pages that a newspaper has ever done in the country,” Ansari claimed.
Speaking about the way ahead for Mid Day, he said, “We are taking both our radio and print ventures national. We are currently evaluating a couple of cities for our next launch.” Without divulging any details of the cities under evaluation, Ansari informed that the next venture might come within a year’s time.
Meanwhile, Radio Go, the radio venture of Mid Day, was recently rebranded as Radio One and was repositioned as a mass based Bollywood hit radio station from a niche channel playing English music. When asked whether Mid Day had not lost its distinctive identity by going mainstream, Ansari replied, “You have to lose something to gain something. In this case, as the gain is larger than the loss, we took the decision.”
The group had won licenses in the cities of Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Bangalore for its FM radio venture under the Phase II FM expansion.
