ASIAN CASE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOL. 6, ISSUE 2, 167–204 (2002) ACRJ Dainik Bhaskar Jaipur This case was prepared by Professor Piyush Kumar In June 1997 Girish Agarwal, Director, Bhaskar Publications, Sinha of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, was reading the report of the survey conducted by Media India and Mr Kunjesh Research Users Council (MRUC). The survey was under- Pariher of Navabharat Times, Madhya Pradesh, India, as a taken after the launch of the Jaipur edition of their Hindi basis for classroom discussion rather than to illustrate other newspaper Dainik Bhaskar. It had wrested the market leader- effective or ineffective han- ship from Rajasthan Patrika, the leader since 1956. On the dling of an administrative or bussiness situation. very first day of its launch Dainik Bhaskar had achieved a confirmed paid up circulation of 172,933 and the readership Please address all correspon- dence to: Dr P. K. Sinha, had reached 459,000 within 4 months in Jaipur city alone. Indian Institute of Manage- This was well above the readership of Rajasthan Patrika that ment, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380 015, India. E-mail: stood at 394,000. Dainik Bhaskar had become the number one
[email protected]. paper in Jaipur. It had also been able to create a new segment of readers who were different from the classical Rajasthan Patrika readers. Besides, 57% of Rajasthan Patrika readers were also reading Dainik Bhaskar. The achievement was very special to Dainik Bhaskar. It was the papers first venture outside the state of Madhya Pradesh. Second, it had challenged a forty-year leader that had enjoyed a near monopoly situation with 80% market share.