The Hindu has unveiled a new hyper-local look in Bangalore with the tagline “Bringing Bangalore Back to You”.
Writes the paper’s editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a front-page note:
“Why you might ask. After all, Bangalore has known The Hindu for its credible, fearless and unfettered reportage. For never dumbing down. For vanguard journalism that brings the world to your doorstep. But Bangalore has evolved, and so have we. So we bring Bangalore back to you….
“We bring the city to you in a chic new design with a fresh clutch of content: sharp investigative stories and new columns in the main edition, and a crosses and mains neighbourhood view of your locality in Bangalore Local, our weekend special.”
For the record, The Times of India leads the Bangalore market, with Deccan Herald a distant number 2, followed by Bangalore Mirror. The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle and DNA are all jostling for the fourth to seventh places in India’s most crowded English newspaper market.
IJR 
About time! We also hope that the uncomfortable left bias of The Hindu,and The Frontline, especially on the news and analysis pages invite the attention of the professional non family Editor.
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A DNA clone!
Just another gimmick to shore up its sinking circulation. Ever since Siddharth Varadarajan took over its editorship, The Hindu’s circulation has gone into a down spiral. But such cosmetic surgeries are not going to save it from its terminal illness.
Actually its circulation has increased. But I fear it has been at some cost to the newspaper – it is no longer the “old man’s” newspaper …
Hi, Sam, please go through the IRS results. Don’t believe Varadarajan’s lies. In the IRS Q4 2012, The Hindu lost a record 94000 readers. The Hindu has been losing readers in almost every quarter ever since Varadarajan took over. You can verify this easily by checking the IRS figures. Please be sure of your facts before making such sweeping claims, Sam.
Off the topic …Long ago, when I was in high school, B’lore had its own tabloid called ‘The City TAB’… a very charming weekly. Does anyone remember?
@ Krishna kumar , The Hindu has a circulation all over India of over 15.6 lakhs . It lost over 94000 readers – no doubt but mainly due to its firm stand against distributers in Calcutta , Bihar , Jharkand and other market .It also does not print more copies though there is a hectic demand only due to cost factor and low ads support due to high advt rates which goes up every year .The Hindu increased price all over North India and there is a dispute with agents there . Once it is sorted out , readership as well as circulation are bound to go up .
Hi, Victor, even if one agrees that it lost readers in North India and Kolkata due to the factors you cite, why does it lose circulation in Tamil Nadu, its home base?. It is not even a marginal player in Bangalore, where it was the second largest selling paper once. Why? In New Delhi, The Hindu has been present for the last three decades. But TOI, HT and ET together account for over 80% of the English newspaper market. Why?
Hi Krishna kumar ,
Due to Times of India keeping price low at Rs 3 / copy , all other papers are forced to maintain at the low price which will cause loss if more copies are printed .
TOI can afford to print many lakhs of copies for Circulation purpose but many of these are not bought or read by readers . They end up as raddi in old newspaper market ,.
The Hindu is the costliest paper all over north india , Kerala and all other parts of southern states except Chenai , Hyderabad , Bangalore . THE HINDU is not in price war with TOI and HT in north due to its low ads support and so it sells at 1.5 to 2 times the price of other papers .The Hindu and other english dailes do not print more copies and show higher circulation as it will result in loss .
TOI offers combo sales by selling with ET and Or Mirror .TH and other papers do not offer these cheap gimmicks .Still they sell and get marginal profit .
in Tamil Nadu, vernacular dailies are costlier than the english dailies– for example Dhinamalar costs about Rs 150 a month, Daily thanthi about Rs 140 whereas THE HINDU costs only around Rs 90 in chennai and slightly higher in other centres.The price of TOI is just Rs 60 and that of Deccan Chronicle is Rs 90.Express costs about Rs 120. Thanks to the unethical and totally unviable price war launched by TOI, all other English dailies suffer very badly.The cost of a copy in reality is more than Rs 8 and no other industry would be able to manage like this.How long can you keep on dumping the burden on advertisers.While the price of all other items in India has been spiralling, it is only the English newspapers that see a diametrically opposite situation.
G.Sathyamoorthi