D B Corp Ltd.
 | |
| Public Limited Company | |
| Traded as | BSE: DBCORP |
| Industry | Media Conglomerate / Diversified Businesses |
| Headquarters | Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India |
Key people |
R C Agrawal (Chairman) Sudhir Agrawal (Managing Director) Pawan Agrawal (Dy. Managing Director) Girish Agrawal (Director) |
| Products |
Dainik Bhaskar Divya Bhaskar Divya Marathi Daily Bhaskar |
| Revenue |
  16.137 billion (US$260 million) (2012-13) [1] |
|
3.974 billion (US$63 million) (2012-13)[1] | |
|
2.181 billion (US$35 million) (2012-13)[1] | |
| Website | bhaskarnet.com |
D B Corp Ltd., informally known as the Dainik Bhaskar Group, is the largest print media company in India with its flagship Hindi daily newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar, Gujarati daily newspaper, Divya Bhaskar and Marathi daily newspaper, Dainik Divya Marathi, Business Bhaskar, Saurashtra Samachar, DB Star & DNA. Magazine Aha! Zindagi is also published by the group. Listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the group is majority owned by the Bhopal based Agarwal family.
History
Dainik Bhaskar was first published in Bhopal and Gwalior of the central province.
The newspaper was launched in year 1956 to fulfill the need for a Hindi language daily, by the name Subah Savere in Bhopal and Good Morning India in Gwalior in year 1957, it was renamed as Bhaskar Samachar. In 1958, it was renamed as Dainik Bhaskar which in 2010, was the No. 1 daily newspaper in India (and No. 11 worldwide) in terms of circulation.
Newspaper editions
D B Corp Ltd. owner of Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Divya Marathi, Saurashtra Samachar, DNA, DB Star & Business Bhaskar has been No.1 Print media group of India, since last 3 years with 19.8 million readers, every day. With presence in 14 states, 67 Editions, 4 Languages (i.e.Hindi,Gujarati, Marathi, English). In Hindi markets under flagship newspaper "Dainik Bhaskar" it is present in 12 states with 37 editions, in Gujarati markets under Divya Bhaskar it is present in 2 states with 7 editions and in Marathi market under Divya Marathi it is present in Maharashtra with 7 editions. D.B. Corp Ltd. has highest overall readership, with highest urban reach.
Newspaper business expansion
In 1983,D.B. Corp Ltd commenced its ambitious journey of expansion with the launch of Dainik Bhaskar's Indore edition – was the first and biggest move outside home town of Bhopal. Also emerged as a challenge to old established newspaper of Indore City. By 1987,it became no. 1 newspaper of Indore, replacing the old established player of Indore Nai Duniya. It further increased its presence in M.P., launched various editions like, Raipur, Bilaspur, Ujjain, Sagar, Ratlam. By 1995, Dainik Bhaskar emerged as the No.1 Newspaper in Madhya Pradesh and was declared the Fastest Growing Daily in India, by the Readership Survey.
In 1996, Dainik Bhaskar's target was to enter Jaipur as No. 2 newspaper (in terms of circulation) on Day 1, with 50,000 copies. To achieve this target, it did a survey of 200,000 potential newspaper buying households in Jaipur. Instead of outsourcing the task of surveying households, it set up an in-house team of 700 surveyors. The team was highly trained in customer engagement, and was trained by experts in body language, grooming, posture, approach methods, social norms and rules etc. Based on survey feedback, they went back to each of the households surveyed, to show them a prototype of the newspaper and gave them the option to sign for an advance subscription. The customers were offered a subscription price of Rs. 1.50 (as against the newsstand price of Rs. 2) and a refund in case of dissatisfaction. When Dainik Bhaskar 's first launch outside MP happened in Jaipur on 19 December 1996, it entered the market as No. 1 newspaper with 172,347 copies. Rajasthan Patrika, the former No. 1, had a circulation of just 100,000 copies at that time. With similar launch strategy, Dainik Bhaskar Group has captured all major cities of Rajasthan, Like, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Kota, Udaipur, Ajmer, Sikar and became no. 1 urban newspaper of Rajasthan by 1999.
The newspaper's next target was Chandigarh. It launched a customer survey in January 2000, covering 220,000 households. At that time, the English language newspapers in Chandigarh outsold the Hindi newspapers by six times, with The Tribune as the leader (50,000 copies). Dainik Bhaskar's survey found that people in Chandigarh preferred English newspapers because of better quality. As a result, the newspaper concentrated on design, and incorporated the local Chandigarh dialect in the design, mixing Hindi and English. Dainik Bhaskar's second launch outside MP happened in Chandigarh in May 2000: it entered the market as No. 1 with 69,000 copies.
In June 2000, Dainik Bhaskar entered Haryana, again as No. 1 on first day, with 271,000 copies.
For its fourth launch outside MP, D B Corp Ltd. identified Ahmedabad, Gujarat as the city with highest potential. It surveyed 12,00,000 households, with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers. The surveyors were gathered largely through posters at colleges and word-of-mouth publicity, instead of expensive print and TV advertisements. Nearly 40–50% of the surveyors were later absorbed in Dainik Bhaskar or Divya Bhaskar, while the rest were given a certificate of appreciation. The team was trained to reach out to 8 lakh households in Ahmedabad and 4 lakh households in adjoining districts, in a time span of 40 days. The newspaper was launched in Ahmedabad on 23 June 2003, under the name Divya Bhaskar, as No. 1 with 452,000 copies (a world record). Within 15 months, it entered two more cities of Gujarat: Surat and Vadodara. To counter the Bhaskar's group's threat, the leading Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers. However, by 2009, Divya Bhaskar became the largest circulated Gujarati daily with 11.5 copies.
In 2006, Dainik Bhaskar Launched its operations in Punjab, launched Amritsar and Jalandhar edition and became no.1 newspaper form the day one of the launch out placing the old established player in the market. It again followed its twin-contact model for its launch. It further increased its presence in Punjab with the launch of Ludhiana and Bhatinda and became no. 1 player of Punjab.
D. B. Corp Ltd. launched Business Bhaskar, the first business daily in Hindi, on 27 June 2008. As of 2011, Business Bhaskar is the largest Hindi-language business daily and has eight editions (Delhi, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Raipur, Panipat, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Jaipur). Yatish K Rajawat is its founding editor.
In year 2010, Dainik Bhaskar entered Jharkhand Market with successful launch of Ranchi, followed by Jamshedpur & Dhanbad Editions Launch to cover and capture entire Jharkhand.
In 2011, D.B. Corp. Ltd. has extended its presence to 4th language Marathi with the launch of Marathi newspaper 'Divya Marathi" in Maharashtra [Aurangabad]. It focused on Marathwada region for its launch due to its rich cultural and economic prosperity. It decided to launch a Newspaper in Marathi language as 88% of the population were Marathi speaking. For its launch it has followed its proven twin-contact survey model. It surveyed 1.4 lakh household reaching out to 75% of households in Aurangabad. It became the no. 1 newspaper from the day one of the launch in Aurangabad. It has expanded its reach in Maharashtra with the launch of Nasik, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Akola and Amravati.
In January 2014, Dainik Bhaskar entered market of Bihar with highly successful launch of Patna. Dainik Bhaskar Newspaper has become most popular newspaper of Patna from Day 1 of the launch with 170,000 copies and No.1 in circulation in Patna City.
Magazine Division
Its magazine division publishes two magazines, namely Aha! Zindagi and Bhaskar Lakshya from Jaipur branch of D B Corp Ltd. Aha! Zindagi is being published in Hindi as well as Gujarati languages.
Other media businesses
Besides, Print Media, D B Corp interest also extends to radio and digital media wherein it owns 17 radio stations and 4 websites in four languages.
Radio
The group has a strong presence in the radio segment, with 17 stations across 7 states of India under the brand name MYFM. It holds no. 1 position, in terms of listenership in majority of its market.
Digital
IMCL, a group company, controls all the portals: Dainikbhaskar.com (in Hindi), divyabhaskar.co.in (in Gujarati), divyamarathi.com (in Marathi), and dailybhaskar.com (in English). Its www.dainikbhaskar.com and www.divyabhaskar.com are the no. 1 websites in Hindi and Gujarati, respectively.All four websites collectively have around 500 million pageviews and around 12 million unique visitors.
Milestones
Dainik Bhaskar's pre-launch door-to-door twin-contact launch programme has been recognised as an Orbit-shifting innovation™ by Erehwon Innovation Consulting. It has won Business Process Innovation award by Marico Foundation, and is a case study in several B-schools including IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Mudra Institute of Communication.