HT, TOI circulation dips. The Hindu's readership goes up

While Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar are the leading newspapers in India with readership (not circulation) of 2.1 crore and 2.09 crore respectively, English dailies have seen The Hindu rising with vengeance.

TOI has 74 lakh readers followed by The Hindu with 40 lakh (up from 37.86 lakh last year). Interestingly, TOI has gone down from ninth to eleventh place in overall circulation from last year. So that is after a long time that TOI is not in the list of top ten most read dailies in India!

NRS 2005 had put TOI at over 80 lakh and this makes it a serious dip of over 7% for the newspaper. Even Economic Times (ET) has a decline of a whopping 9% since last year. HT has marginally declined from 39.47 to 38.57 lakh, a dip of 2% since last year.

The Hindu has relegated HT to third stop and gone to the second place despite HT securing over 3.6 lakh new readers in Mumbai. The readership of DNA (Bhaskar group's Daily News and Analysis) has gone up to 5 lakh.

The five million club has Jagran, Bhaskar, Eenadu, Lokmat, Amar Ujala, Hindustan, Thanthi, Dinakaran, Rajasthan Patrika, Malayalama Manorama, Times of India and Mathrubhumi (in sequence).

Top ten English Dailies and their Readership in Lakhs
1. TOI 75 lakh
2. The Hindu 40 lakh
3. Hindustan Times 39 lakh
4. Deccan Chronicle 16 lakh
5. Telegraph (Kolkata) 14 lakh
6. The New Indian Express 10.5 lakh
7. Economic Times 9.4 lakh
8. Mumbai Mirror 8.8 lakh
9. Mid Day 8 lakh
10. Tribune 6.5 lakh
DNA just missed the birth in top ten, it is at eleventh spot. And the old Indian Express is at 12th, out of top ten, with a circulation of just 5 lakh due to recent launches in Mumbai. Also, an important aspect is TOI leading HT in Delhi, with the former having 20.74 lakh and latter 19.84 lakh readers. The change in Navbharat Times name to Times of India is the reason!

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Editor's arrest in Gujarat

The arrest of the editor of an evening newspaper in Surat is condemnable. Manoj Shinde may be pro-Congress but the action can't be justified by any standards in this country.

The poor handling of the flood and the spread of diseases in its aftermath has angered the residents. The paper was exposing the 'failure' of the administration but the arrest of Manoj Shinde, is shocking.

The editor of Surat Samna, Shinde has been booked for anti-national activities, including "instigating people against a duly elected government" and defaming senior officials and executives, reports The Hindu. Journalists have rallied behind Shinde but the arrest has shown the government in poor light and once again exposed the contempt of Modi's government towards democracy, civil society and rule of law. When criticism of government is termed as anti-national and the state infringes on freedom of press, it is an ominous sign.

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