Breaking one of the last boundaries of the traditional territories of newspapers, The Hindu is all set to start an edition in Mumbai, possibly being one of the last major national dailies to launch an edition in the country’ financial capital.
Huffpost India reported on Friday that The Hindu is preparing to launch a Mumbai edition by the end of November. The report quoted editor of The Hindu Malini Parthasarathy as saying that the decision was “led by the needs of our readers as well as advertisers”.
The Mumbai edition will be headed by Sachin Kalbag, who has been editor of Mid-Day since 2011. Huffpost reported that Mumbai has the largest share of advertising in the country.
Competition in Mumbai is tough with the presence of The Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, DNA, Mid-Day, Asian Age and Hindustan Times.
With the launch of The Hindu’s Mumbai edition, the last of the territorial domains have been breached.
Traditionally, The Hindu has been associated with Chennai where it is still one of the dominant newspapers, while maintaining a strong presence in the south. The Times of India has traditionally had the upper hand in the financial capital while Delhi was the Hindustan Times’s bastion.
For several decades, Hindustan Times and The Times of India almost had an informal understanding of staying away from each other’s territories, which was broken when TOI launched an edition in Delhi. Since the TOI began to expand rapidly in the 1990s, one by one, media houses have expanded beyond their traditional strongholds.