The Times of India

Name says it all!!

The Times of India is nations leading media
company.

Worlds largest English broadsheet daily.
They have made Times a destination, must-read
paper to begin the morning and combination
of current national, world and business
events.
and also the society gossip sells the paper.

HISTORY AND EVOLUTION

The Times of India was founded on November 3,
1838 as 'The Bombay Times and Journal of
Commerce' In Mumbai, as a semi-weekly edition,
on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

The daily editions of the paper were started from
1850 and in 1861, the Bombay Times was renamed
The Times of India.

In the 19th century this newspaper company
employed more than 800 people and had a sizable
circulation in India and Europe.


It was after India's Independence that the
ownership of the paper passed on to the then
famous industrial family of Dalmiyas and later it was
taken over by Sahu Shnati Prasad Jain of the Sahu
Jain group from Bijnore, UP.
The Anglo-Indian papers promoted purely British
interests. Robert Knight (18251892) was the
principal founder and the first editor of the Times.
Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. is the largest media
group in India, known as The Times Group. It is
best known as the publisher of the English daily
The Times of India.
MARKET SITUATION WHEN TOI ENTERED
Printing press appeared in India as early as 1670, not
until 1777 was the first newspaper printed in Bombay.
These papers were operated by Parsi businessmen,
and printed in English several dozen existed by 1800.
Papers in native languages appeared in the 1820s and
1830s.
In Post Independence era, i.e., in 1950 there were 214
daily newspapers and in 1990 that number had
increased to 2,856.


CURRENT STATUS OF TOI
According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS)
2010, the Times of India is the most widely read
English newspaper in India with a readership of
13.4 million.
The circulation in 2010 increased to 530524.
[According to Audit Bureau of Circulation ]
TOI Online is the world's most-visited newspaper
website with 159 million page views in May 2009,
ahead of the New York Times, The Sun,
Washington Post, Daily Mail and USA Today
websites.
HOW DID THEY GROW AND SUSTAIN?
On January 22, 2004, TOI signed a joint
operating agreement with Dow Jones & Co.
to publish the Wall Street Journal for India.
The Journal would be published 5 days a
week, with Dow Jones owning 26% the
maximum allowed by foreign ownership laws
and the Times of India, owning 74% of the
new venture. The content would focus on
Indian readers and tap into the global
resources of the Wall Street Journal.

PPI Media integrated with the SAP software,
provided TOI with significant competitive
advantage in terms of speed, efficiency and
turnaround time.

Over the years since the implementation, TOI
have had a whole lot of changes with respect to
business policies and configuration.

In June, 2003, When TOI went live, the
newspaper changed the width of its paper.
Moreover, in September, the Group changed its
entire pricing policy, which had not changed in
about 10 years. In May 2004, the Group
changed its units of measurement

Conglomeration of Times of India with TV
medium:-
- Times of India made its appearance a hit, by the launch
of Zoom TV, a entertainment channel, viewing Page 3
gossip and Indian and Western cinema.
-MOVIES NOW, This too was a worked strategic, as
Indians are curios about the happenings in cinema and
the world around it, the channel making its hit.
-TIMES NOW is a Leading 24-hour English News
channel
-ET Now, the latest addition to business news channels


MARKETING STRATEGIES
The advertisements have highlighted the Indian-
ness in all the campaigns and reflected how TOI is
a part of this great journey of Indian-ness.

The Times Group constantly keeps things exciting
not just through their contents, but also through
their designs and innovations.



Everything that they do is also always greatly
marketed and backed up by perhaps one of Indias
best sales teams, which is always equipped with the
best tools and researches.
In their campaigns rather than talk about the
newspaper, they try and be the platform or the
presenter of ideas that come from the readers own
lives, reflect their hopes, aspirations.
TOI recently announced the launch of an all-colour
newspaper of colour in Indian life as seen on our
streets and our cinema and linked it back to the
product subtly, rather than a narrow campaign
focusing on the product itself.

Move first, Move fast

Multiple ties

Continuous innovation

Where ideas live

Smart-sensing the future
The newness of the masthead on occasions like
Diwali, Holi, Christmas, New Year, Budget Day,
etc., acts as a refreshing innovation and helps
forge an emotive link with the reader segment.

They dont have their PR agency. So they
communicate through their own media channels.

CHALLENGES
The early 1990s saw HT and ToI engaged in a bitter
battle for supremacy in Delhi, which is perceived to be
the most important market in India.

In 1991, ToI had a circulation of around 70,000 in Delhi
as against 0.35 million for HT.

In 1994, ToI slashed its price from Rs.2.30 to Rs.1.50.
By 1998, the difference in circulation figures narrowed
down to a few thousand copies. Since
1991, ToI's circulation has increased in percentage
terms more than HT
The Times of India group has not only challenged,
but also sought damages worth Rs 100 crore
(about US $ 22 million) from Indian Express
Newspapers (Bombay) Limited for making false
readership claims.

To gain a bigger share, Hindustan Times' vice
chairperson Shobhana Bhartia chalked out a
restructuring plan with an investment of Rs.4 billion.

TOI followed the marketing style of blitzkrieg:
events, promotions and ad campaigns...

The Times Group also places equal focus and
importance to every department and function -
which has made it a professional entity and
ensured its place as the most profitable newspaper
in the country.
The present management of The Times Group has
been instrumental in changing the outlook of Indian
journalism.
The Editor of a newspaper has traditionally been
considered as the most notable position in a
newspaper set up. The Times of India, however,
changed this in the early 1990s, in keeping with the
management policy of treating the newspaper as
just another brand in the market
UPS AND DOWNS IN THE BUSINESS -
CRISIS MGT
Jain and his team have made the Times a
destination, the must-read paper to begin the
morning, not only for the current national, world,
and business events, but also for the society gossip
and that combination sells papers.
Critics argue that the Times of India uses its pages
for too much blatant cross-promotion of its media
products, which in turn diminishes its journalistic
credibility.
During the mid-1990s, TOI was criticized for
promoting 'yellow journalism' by sensationalizing
news, exaggerating news events, promoting its own
brands, etc.
Today's readers don't just expect news about
politics or society or business issues anymore.
They also expect an editorial line on contemporary
issues like fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle.

In order to build its brand image, TOI adopted a
social marketing strategy and projected itself as an
agent of social change by launching a series of
social campaigns highlighting social issues.
In a bid to improve its circulation, TOI was
concentrating on efforts like introducing colored
pages, celebrity articles, and film-related news
rather than taking care of the deteriorating quality
of its content.
The backlash against the Times of India has
been a continued concern of management.
Ardent opponents have called for boycotts of all
Bennett, Coleman products, prompting a protest
campaign on a website
http://techrose.org/justsayno,
And calling the company the Microsoft of Indian
media too penetrating, too rich, too arrogant,
and too powerful.

According to the Times Group, the 'Teach India'
campaign created a lot of buzz and within three
weeks of the program being launched in July
2008, a total of 88,710 people had responded. Of
these, 55,035 applied for the program
The performance of sales force is measured in
terms of the number of subscriptions generated by
each sales person.
At the end of the month they collate how many
subscriptions have been generated by executives
and on the basis of subscriptions generated salary
is computed.

7200
8757
12424
18250
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
20000
April 03 May 03 'May 04 'April 05
TIMES OF INDIA IS PRINTED FROM
THE FOLLOWING PLACES-
Lucknow
Mangalore
Mumbai
Mysore
Nagpur
Patna
Pune
Ranchi
Surat


AWARDS AND RECOGNITION.
On May 7, 2008, the 73rd Annual INMA awards for
the world's best newspaper marketing campaigns
were presented at the INMA World Congress in
Beverly Hills, California.

The Times of India's (TOI) 'Lead India' Campaign
bagged the 'Best of Show' award for community
service and also picked up the first prize in the
'Brand Awareness Across Platforms', the 'New
Brand / Production/ Audience Development', and
'Public Relations and Community services'
categories.

FUTURE PLANS
Partnerships with top global media companies
Wall Street Journal
BBC

NO plans to rest on its laurels.

CRM solution for their clients and agencies.
(Extensive use of new media)