At the diversified Jagran Group, 50-year-old Shailesh Gupta, Director of Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL), also manages an important portfolio – that of Marketing and Advertising - which has been key to the Group’s performance and the flagship Dainik Jagran’s supremacy in Print over the years.
In fact, commenting on JPL’s Q1 results on July 31, 2020, the Group’s patriarch Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, JPL, said that by way of significant cost savings and tirelessly looking for revenue opportunities, the Group has added a number of new advertisers and ensured liquidity for the business to continue unhindered despite the challenges of lockdown.
“The Group was able to keep its cash losses lower than expected and improve its liquidity further, which is the need of the hour. The Group will remain agile to capitalize on every opportunity which these difficult times may offer,” the senior Gupta said.
Here are excerpts from a conversation that Nawal Ahuja, Director of the exchange4media Group, had with Shailesh Gupta, Director, Jagran Prakashan Limited and President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), in which he takes us through the working of the Group’s different verticals and the agenda before INS in the time of COVID-19, with the Print medium facing challenging times.
Q] With total readership of nearly 7 crore, Dainik Jagran has held No. 1 position across languages pan India since 2003 as per the Indian Readership Survey (IRS). To what do you attribute this – what factors helped Dainik Jagran maintain this lead?
A very strong focus on creating quality content for our readers and relentless focus on good journalism lie at the core of our product offering. At the same time, we engage very strongly with our readers and collaborate with them to create community level change. This reader engagement is a continuous exercise.
JAGRAN PRAKASHAN: CONSOLIDATED Q1 FY21 RESULTS
(All comparisons with Q1 FY20)
Q] What’s the traction that you see from Jagran New Media (JNM), the online arm for JPL, with nine portals under it? What is its contribution to revenue for the Group?
Jagran New Media has done very well over the last few years. Our brand’s content credibility drives our digital presence. We also launched another portal, vishwas.news, to promote credible journalism.
The fact-checking news portal has been created with the intent to reduce the dissemination of misinformation and is certified by International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).
We have a strong social outreach through Facebook and Twitter, and our strong technology ecosystem provides a seamless experience to users. With a relentless focus on good journalism, we have 26 million Facebook fans, and we’re the first newspaper brand to reach this milestone on social media.
During Q1 2020-21, the digital business under Jagran New Media registered rapid growth in the News/Information category and we crossed the 100 million user benchmark with 108 million users, 817 million page views and 925 million minutes time spent.
This represents an annual growth of 107%, 65% and 85% respectively, over May’19 (ComScore MMX: May’20).
Within the Hind
