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suresh

Let me give you an update of what is happening with HT Powerjobs turned Shine. The number of pages is not increasing. There are hardly any advts. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, this strategy of HT will not work. I am afraid that it may end up closing the supplement.

Don’t believe me. Check it out yourself.

Avinash Narula

I think HT management needs to do get their act together otherwise I expect the situation to get worse.

I sincerely hope somebody in HT is reading.

I am responding to pranav’s comment. For any newspaper supplement to be successful, the pre-condition is that the main paper has to be successful or have a good circulation. There is a difference between the competitive market position of Indian Express and New Indian Express. New Indian Express covers South pretty well in terms of editions but not in terms of circulation. Primarily its circulation in the major metro cities is very weak as compared to the other cities in the south. Similar to Indian Express (NIE) in Delhi and Mumbai, New Indian Express is at the bottom of the ladder in Metros like Chennai. It was at the bottom (approx 50,000 circulation) when Hindu was the only other paper. Then Deccan Chronicle came in and NIE slipped to 3rd position. After Times of India (TOI) was launched, it slipped to 4th position.

For NIE express, the oppotunities lies in building a strong competitive position in the non-metros/rural areas of South. They need to forget about Metros completely as nothing can be done. However, in the smaller cities they still have a chance. They need to position themselves as the paper for the smaller towns and cities.

As far as career supplement of NIE goes, its destiny is linked to the main paper. I am sorry to say, NIE and its career supplement are in for tough times unless it can build strength in the smaller cities/rural areas. I think career supplement can play a good role in building NIE’s strength in smaller towns/rural areas as education is increasingly becoming a very important part of these areas. For instance, a great of the student population in Delhi is from the outlying areas.

Avinash Narula

While on the subject

thanks for the words of encouragement.

avinash