DC: The king of South

Deccan Chronicle is the largest circulated English newspaper in all of South India. An analysis of figures put out recently by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the industry body that audits newspapers sales, shows that Chronicle is the clear leader in the south.

The competition? There is The Hindu that sold 14,53,405 copies daily in the July-December 2008 period. And Chronicle sold 13,33,668 every day in that period. So how does that make Chronicle the southern superstar?

Here is how. The Hindu sold 1,16,851 copies in Delhi. That means its south editions, minus the Delhi circulation, sold 13,36,554. Isn’t that still more than the Chronicle total?

Yes it is, but there is a caveat. The Hindu sold 2,30,688 copies in schools. These copies could be priced differently. In some instances, a separate newspaper is made for the schools. But all the copies are included in the ABC audit, albeit under a separate heading but sum up to the total circulation.

Minus the school copies from the southern circulation, The Hindu totals 11,05,866 copies in the south. Deccan Chronicle sells 13,33,668 copies in the south, all sold directly to subscribers. Another dimension that makes us the leader is that The Hindu sells 1,93,115 in Kerala. Factor that in, and Chronicle is miles ahead.

What about The Times of India? The Times does not submit all its editions to audit every time, something we at Chronicle do religiously.

The Times of India’s Bengaluru edition is audited but not its Chennai edition. So there is no figure to go by, and it is best to drop it for comparison. There’s also Deccan Herald in Karnataka but they are far behind our Bengaluru edition in sales.

Dear reader, know that you are with the King of the South. It means you are with the paper that has been brought out with painstaking effort. Because we know what it means to be the leader to the reader.

We are the paper that the AP reader, the Tamil Nadu reader and the Karnataka reader, as different as can be, want with their chai, with their kafi. And we manage to be all this without losing our southern spice.

DC sets record in Bengaluru
Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru, is the fastest growing newspaper to the Advertiser in Indian history. In just seven months since its launch, the newspaper has notched a daily average circulation of 2,43,147 copies, certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an independent auditor of newspaper circulation figures.

Chronicle was launched in Bengaluru on May 26, 2008, and the ABC figures pertains to daily average sales between July and December 2008. For the record, Chronicle sold a daily average of 1,06,717 copies in the first 36 days of launch.

The newspaper from all its editions added 2,61,440 copies over the last six months, growing at about 24.38 per cent. That means the Chronicle family grew by 43,573 buyers every month. In Hyderabad alone, Chronicle sells 5,26,382 copies, and 7,84,062 in all of AP. That indicates a gain of 36,266 over the previous six months in the state. The Chennai edition sold 3,06,432 copies in the July-December 2008 period, and is logging gains.

All of this has not been easy. You, our reader and our advertiser, demand only the best. Naturally, that is Deccan Chronicle. We promise to keep that in mind as we go forward.