Top three newspapers reap profits

CEO speak from the top three.

Pawan Agarwal, the deputy managing director at DB Corp
Newspaper giant, DB Corp expects its edition in Maharashtra to be profitable by March 2015. The DB Corp Q2 profit is up 13% at Rs 68 cr. Pawan Agarwal, the deputy managing director at DB Corp said the Bihar business was doing well and the company was maintaining its leadership position in the Patna newspaper market. The central government should revive the economy and help the company grow in the current half of this fiscal. Bihar has been doing well with 175,000 copies being printed. This has ensured the leadership positions in Patna. In Maharashtra too, some of the editions in Maharashtra which were launched earlier should also do a breakeven in Q4 plus Jharkhand should be positive in the last quarter of this year. So overall print is looking very positive. We are hoping that the government policies, the reforms should help us grow to the second half of the year better than the first half of the year. I look at real estate and auto mobile and FMCG doing well. What is yet to perform is the education sector.

RK Agarwal, the CFO, Jagran Prakashan
The CFO of Jagran Prakashan, RK Agarwal said the improvement in margin – from 11.29 percent to 13.31 percent -- was driven by advertising revenue growth for its flagship Dainik Jagran daily, plus operation improvement in its acquired brands such as Mid Day. he added, Jagran is doing extremely well in UP where competition like DB Corp is not present. Agarwal, added, that in Bihar it is number one, except in Patna. Agarwal expects, "Around 11-12 percent -- what we recorded in Q2 for Dainik Jagran - this is what should be the overall growth for H2. And circulation revenue should remain range-bound around 9-10 percent."

Shobhana Bhartia, the chairperson and editorial director of HT Media Limited
Shobhana Bhartia of HT Media said, "In spite of the difficult macro- environment, Ht Media Limited succeeded in delivering a solid performance in FY 14." She added, "Our flagship newspaper Hindustan Times continues to reign undisputed in the Delhi/NCR market, while in Mumbai it is the fastest growing English daily. In the Hindi newspaper market, Hindustan maintained its distinctive track record of being the only Hindi daily to add readers. Speaking of the expansion drive in UP, she said, "Our initiatives in the Hindi heartland, especially in the state of Uttar  Pradesh, have paid of well and we are now witnessing prolific growth in readership vis-a-vis other players in the market."

Bhartia concluded, "India is changing, and we are playing the role of a vanguard team in precipitating that change."