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I joined Anandabazar in 1976 in the circulation department.... In the beginning of the 1980s, we all did a lot of research, including Shiloo Chattopadhyay, who passed away a few months ago.
There was M.J. Akbar, then Alyque Padamsee who was handling the campaign for the launch... a lot of names were tossed around and we finally settled on The Telegraph. Because it seemed the most appropriate and it sounded exciting!
English newspapers those days were very serious. Our research showed that news was presented in a very matter-of-fact manner. Also, the news was scattered across the pages and what readers found most irritating were front-page stories turning to inside pages, “turn to page 5, column 4” and all that. There was also hardly any space for entertainment in the paper. All these things were kept in mind.
The Telegraph, in fact, rewrote a lot of the rules of the game. The idea was to make the paper more reader-friendly. So, the whole structure was redesigned. Those days, none of the papers in the country had sections. The Telegraph was the first to do it. And there was a logic to how the sections would be arranged. It was the opposite of how you would write your postal address — locality, city, state and then country. So we started with the Foreign section, then Nation, then Metro or city. We were also the first newspaper in the country to have two business pages. There was one full page of entertainment, including comics, which was unheard of then. Sports news back then was for the bachchas, not given much importance, but we said we would have two pages of sport.
In terms of pricing, we priced it higher than The Statesman, then the leading daily. It was quite a bold move but we felt our paper is what an English paper ought to be. We will appeal to the people who are possibly more travelled, more aware of things and would not mind paying a little extra. We were actually aiming at the upper end of the market. And therefore, we were aiming to be something you aspire towards.
So, the initial campaign we had was “News comes to life”. The newspaper ad showed the early morning sun, signifying news coming to life. And there were three television commercials. One showed a man reading about a football match and all of a sudden, the football comes out of the pages! Another was about someone reading about the floods in Assam and he looks down to see water near his feet!
‘Wow, this is different!’
Just ahead of the launch, we were at work practically 24 hours a day! And so there was great excitement when the night of July 6 finally arrived. Everybody, from all departments, stayed back that night. We went to the press in the middle of the night to see and feel the first edition of our paper. The press was located just opposite the 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street building. We all stayed till 4am, going through the paper and celebrating.
The moment the paper hit the other markets like a Bombay or a Delhi or a Madras, everybody said, “Wow! This is different. So, when are you coming here?” It’s the first question they asked whenever I went to Bombay or Delhi. They still ask me that today!
‘The Unputdownable’
So the initial reaction was very positive. Then within a month or two, we had to do a follow-up campaign. And that’s when the fun started. Alyque Padamsee was very insistent that we use the word “unputdownable”. I don’t think this word was there in the dictionary then and needless to say, there was a huge amount of debate over it. But the idea was that the paper was so good that you really couldn’t put it down, you had to read it from end to end. That’s how we became the “Unputdownable” paper. And Mr Padamsee supported it with three commercials. One had a man lathering his face for a shave. The lather is flowing down his face but he doesn’t realise it because he’s reading The Telegraph; the paper is just... unputdownable. Another had a lady on a crowded bus, yelling away to glory because a man is stamping on her foot. But he’s oblivious to her because he’s so engrossed in The Telegraph. It was a beautiful campaign and it worked very well.
In terms of advertising, we started getting a lot of enquiries and interest. But obviously we didn’t have big circulation figures initially. The Statesman had a circulation of 240,000, of which 220,000 was in Calcutta and the rest in Delhi. We started with some 40,000 copies. But we knew we had the right kind of readers. We asked our advertisers to ask airhostesses which was the most sought-after paper on flights and they said The Telegraph. And those days, only the top people flew. Interestingly, our advertising rates were never significantly lower than our competition. This again sent out a message to the market that we knew what we were doing. We told our advertisers that we were the future, that we were confident of becoming the market leader.
A newspaper is read for news, yes, but it also provides relevant information. And advertising is information. One of the most important ads are appointment ads or recruitment ads. And I have the dubious distinction of being the first “Appointment” Ad Manager in the country. It used to confuse and flummox people!
We had very passionate and closely-knit sales, advertising and circulation teams. And we were very close to the editorial team as well. Every night there would be an adda, sometimes a couple of drinks. Sometimes with M.J. Akbar himself. Even now, on the 7th of July, friends of The Telegraph, people who have worked here, get together in Bombay or Delhi and have a party. At their own cost. That's the kind of bonding we had.
‘If somebody is born...’
We finally overtook The Statesman — in gross overall circulation — in 10 years. Around the same time, we also overtook them in advertising volume. So 10 years was a landmark for us.
A business daily did a very interesting story on The Telegraph phenomenon in Calcutta, a half-page article, where one of the things they said was that the common saying is, “In Calcutta, if somebody dies, The Statesman loses a reader and if somebody is born, The Telegraph gets a reader.” The Telegraph was a rage with the young. Today, if you look at anyone who’s 35-40, chances are that he or she would have grown up on The Telegraph.
In 1993-94, though we were ahead in numbers in overall figures, counting Bihar, Orissa, the Northeast, The Statesman had a very strong legacy, particularly in Calcutta. “The Telegraph looks very nice, reads very nice but The Statesman is The Statesman” was the common refrain. An elderly gentleman I met at the cigarette shop every day told me so in as many words. I just couldn’t convince him to switch. But as I was coming away, he said, “Young man, I must tell you, I have asked the vendor to deliver The Telegraph too at my home. Not for me, but my daughter-in-law wants to read your paper.”
Number one
Around the mid-’90s, we had two kinds of challenges. One was that The Statesman was still No. 1 in Calcutta in sheer numbers. And second, The Asian Age was planning to launch in Calcutta. And those days, while our maximum number of pages was 12, they were supposed to come in as a 24-pager. Moreover, while our paper cost Rs 2.50, theirs would come for Rs 1.50.
We decided not to drop the price immediately but to increase the overall value of the paper for the reader.
We decided to give something different for each day of the week to the reader. It's a family newspaper, so it should have something for everybody, we said. On Mondays, we’ll have KnowHow, on science and technology. Tuesday would have Jobs; so while all other newspapers had appointment ads all over their pages, we had a dedicated section and editorial content to support those pages.
Then we said we’ll create something for children; TeleKids was launched on Thursdays. Then we said, okay fine, television is here to stay and entertainment is something that drives anybody and everybody. So we launched etc — entertainment, television, cinema. And we had the best TV listings in the country. Later, Careergraph came in on Wednesdays.
After we had established our product, at a higher price than The Statesman or The Asian Age, we dropped our cover price. The numbers shot through the roof and we overtook The Statesman in Calcutta and became No. 1.
