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The Times of India

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The Times of India
The Times of India logo
The June 26, 2010 front page of the Mumbai edition of The Times of India
TypeDaily tabloid
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
PublisherThe Times Group
Editor-in-chiefJaideep Bose
Associate editorJug Suraiya
Founded3 November 1838
Political alignmentConservative
LanguageEnglish
HeadquartersTimes House
7 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, Delhi 110002
Circulation3,146,000 daily
Sister newspapersThe Economic Times
Navbharat Times
OCLC number23379369
Websitetimesofindia.indiatimes.com

The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily tabloid. It is published in New Delhi by The Times Group. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language tabloids in the world, across all formats (broadsheet, tabloid, compact, Berliner and online).[1][2] It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. which is owned by the Sahu Jain family.

In the year 2008, the tabloid reported that (with a circulation of over 3.14 million) it was certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (India) as the world's largest selling English-language daily newspaper, placing as the 8th largest selling newspaper in any language in the world.[3] According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2010, the Times of India is the most widely read English tabloid in India with a readership of 70.35 lakhs (7.035 million). This ranks the Times of India as the top English newspaper in India by readership.[4] According to ComScore, Indiatimes (and not TOI online) is the world's most-visited tabloid website with 159 million page views in May 2009, ahead of the New York Times, The Sun, Washington Post, Daily Mail and USA Today websites [citation needed].

History

The Times Of India was founded on 3 November 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce In Mumbai,[5] during the British Raj. Published every Saturday and Wednesday, The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was launched as a semi-weekly edition by Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a Maharashtrian Reformist. It contained news from Britain and the world, as well as the Indian Subcontinent. The daily editions of the paper were started from 1850 and in 1861, the Bombay Times was renamed as The Times of India. In the 19th century, this newspaper company employed more than 800 people and had a sizable circulation in India and Europe. It was after India's independence that the ownership of the paper passed on to the then famous industrial family of Dalmiyas and later it was taken over by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Kunal Jain group from Bijnore, UP.

India's press in the 1840s was a motley collection of small-circulation daily or weekly sheets printed on rickety presses. Few extended beyond their small communities and seldom tried to unite the many castes, tribes, and regional subcultures of India. The Anglo-Indian papers promoted purely British interests. Robert Knight (1825–1892) was the principal founder and the first editor of the Times.

The son of a London bank clerk from the lower-middle-class, Knight proved a skilled writer and passionate reformer. Knight helped create a vibrant national newspaper industry in British India. When the Sepoy Mutiny erupted, Knight was acting editor of the Bombay Times and Standard. He broke with the rest of the English language press (which focused on Indian savagery and treachery) and instead blamed the violence on the lack of discipline and poor leadership in the army. That angered the Anglo-Indian community but attracted the Times's Indian shareholders, who made him the permanent editor. Knight blasted the mismanagement and greed of the Raj, attacking annexation policies that appropriated native lands and arbitrarily imposed taxes on previously exempt land titles, ridiculing income taxes, and exposing school systems that disregarded Indian customs and needs.

Knight led the paper to national prominence. In 1860, he bought out the Indian shareholders and merged with the rival Bombay Standard, and started India's first news agency. It wired Times dispatches to papers across the country and became the Indian agent for Reuters news service. In 1861, he changed the name from the Bombay Times and Standard to the Times of India. Knight fought for a press free of prior restraint or intimidation, frequently resisting the attempts by governments, business interests, and cultural spokesmen.[6]

Current situation

The Times of India is published by the media group Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. This company, along with its other group companies, known as The Times Group, also publishes The Economic Times, Mumbai Mirror, Pune Mirror, Bangalore Mirror, Ahmedabad Mirror, the Navbharat Times (a Hindi-language daily broadsheet), the Maharashtra Times (a Marathi-language daily broadsheet).

In late 2006, Times Group acquired Vijayanand Printers Limited (VPL). VPL used to publish two Kannada newspapers Vijay Karnataka and Usha Kiran and an English daily Vijay Times. Vijay Karnataka was the leader in the Kannada newspaper segment then.[7]

In January 2007, the Kannada edition was launched in Bangalore (which was stopped in March 2010) and in April 2008 the Chennai edition was launched. Their main rivals in India are The Hindu and Hindustan Times, which hold second and third position by circulation.[8]

Editions

TOI first office where it was founded, Mumbai[5]
TOI press at Sahibabad

The Times of India has its markets in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Nagpur, Jaipur and Goa. Soon its Bhopal market will be operational. The Times of India is printed in India at: Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Goa, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hubli, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Mysore, Nagpur, Noida, Patna, Rajkot, Ranchi, Surat, Thane, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Vadodara, Varanasi. The Pune edition is printed in Navi Mumbai and Tiruchirappalli edition in Madurai.

The total average circulation for 2010 was 3,433,000 copies.[9]

Editorial Controversies

Times of India editorial changes have raised a lot of questions about the integrity of the newspaper. In 1989, the editor of Times of India, Girilal Jain was sacked for purportedly developing pro Hindutva sympathies.[10] In 1998, the summary dismissal of then editor H K Dua was attributed to his pursuit of an independent editorial policy that did not suit the interests of the promoters of the group.[11] A complaint was filed by PUCL in this matter with PCI. The PCI censured The Times of India in the strongest terms, and praised Mr. H.K.Dua. (The PUCL represented by its General Secy., Dr. Y.P. Chhibbar was also a complainant in the case.[12]

Key persons

  • Indu Jain, current Chairperson
  • Samir Jain, Vice-Chairman & Publisher
  • Ronit Malhotra, MD
  • Ronit Malhotra, CEO
  • Jug Suraiya (associate editor, columnist, "Jugular Vein," cartoonist, "Dubyaman II")
  • Swaminathan Aiyar (columnist, "Swaminomics")
  • R. K. Laxman ("You Said It" editorial cartoon, featuring the famous Common Man)
  • Rukmini Subramanian, Senior Writer
  • Bachi Karkaria, columnist, "Erratica"
  • Vinay Pandey, Editor-Online
  • Vinita Nangia, Editor-Times Life
  • Shobha De, columnist
  • Jaideep Bose, Editorial Director
  • Arindam Sen Gupta, Executive Editor
  • Dileep Padgaonkar, Former Editor, currently Consulting Editor and columnist
  • M J Akbar, Columnist, "The Siege Within" and former Editorial Team
  • Gurcharan Das, Columnist
  • Gautam Adhikari, former Executive Editor, Editorial Consultant
  • Russi Karanjia, assistant editor during the 1930s
  • Trivadi, columnist and humorist well known for his editorials, humor pieces, and satirical poems.
  • Chetan Bhagat, Columnist, Sunday TOI
  • Kaushal Thakkar, Sr. Product Manager, Response - Ascent

See also

References

  1. ^ "TOI Online is world's No.1 newspaper website". Times of India. July 12, 2009. Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "Dailies add 12.6 million readers: NRS". The Hindu. August 29, 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ "List of newspapers in the world by circulation". International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations. June 30, 2008. Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ "Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2010 — Quarter 1". Newswatch.in. June 30, 2010. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  5. ^ a b "The Times of India turns the Times of Colour". Televisionpoint.com. April 26, 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ Edwin Hirschmann, Robert Knight: Reforming Editor in Victorian India (Oxford University Press, 2008) ISBN 978-0-19-569622-6
  7. ^ "Times Group acquires Vijayanand Printers". The Times Of India.
  8. ^ "The Times of India consolidating in Chennai". Televisionpoint.com. July 7, 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
  9. ^ "World Press Trends - Newspaper & Media Market Research Reports & Statistics". Wan-press.org. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
  10. ^ "The Politics of the Aryan Invasion Debate". Koenraadelst.bharatvani.org. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
  11. ^ "A newspaper scandal". Hindu.com. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
  12. ^ PUCL (1999-03-21). "Fear of Freedom - Press Council's Judgement in H.K. Dua Case". Pucl.org. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
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