Sunday, February 5, 2012

Fourth Estate Times of India Vs The Hindu

During my last trip to Amchi Mumbai, I had made the following comments...

  • Talking among newspapers, I still cannot understand why do Times of India has so many pages! They may consider it as a very hot product ! But, it is more 'humid', than that ! Fourth Estate deserves to maintain certain amount of consistent quality! Why waste paper/environment, reader's valuable time ( though he/she can choose... but do we choose really?)
But the soft copy version, was quite 'vulgar'! Once, few months into my life outside India/Mumbai, an Indian colleague commented looking at ToI website, 'people may mistake it for a porn site' ! That too from a newspaper which is a leader and has some great articles such as Speaking Tree... ( their sheer size of each edition, with its several Page 3's and beyond, would make it a serial-killer of trees!)    


It is against this background I am very happy to note the entry of The Hindu to Mumbai. Yes, as a child it was not my favourite brand, as my fauji dad would insist I flip thru the newpaper, daily. Subsequently, he was critical I would start with sports page, but he was glad that I was getting hooked. But that has helped immensely, later in my life... Of course, English teachers would insist, 'read the editorial' !


I did try this out with my kid, but with very limited success :) Once in a while I would pick up the previous day's edition of The Hindu, from our newspaper vendor ( in Mumbai). 


I am more delighted to see their TVC's (on NDTV). They have taken it head-on... no one, incl ToI would have expected that from Chennai's own TH !! Rajnikanth belongs there, 'mind it!!'

  • ATM - had so many definitions? (I am going to share with my banker-colleagues/friends...)!!
  • what does UPA stands for...was hilarious
  • Ratan Tata's successor... :)





check out : 
http://www.mutiny.in/2012/01/28/wake-up-to-the-the-hindu-times-of-india-ad-war/









1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are spot on about adult content in TOI. TOI is not a news paper anymore. I would not like my grandson to read it even the print edition. Sivakumar