By Pradyuman Maheshwari
As a Mumbai boy, it’s sad to see Mid-Day sold to a non-Mumbaiwallah. For, in the 31 years it has been in the business, Mid-Day is as much a Mumbai institution as, say, the bhelpuri, vada pav, cutting chai or even the Gateway of India. The vendor selling “Mid-Day Mid-Day Mid-Day” at traffic lights and young execs trying to crack the crossword in the Virar local are familiar sights.
But I am glad that Mid-Day has been acquired by a progressive, hungry-for-growth media company like the Jagran group. Heck, it’s the publisher of unarguably India’s biggest newspaper – Dainik Jagran. More importantly, it’s being acquired by a newspaper company that’s not going to let it languish. So, to twist the famed Bollywood dialogue: “toh ghabrao mat Mumbaiwallon, tumhara paper safe hands mein hai!”
Do I see a tremendous future for the paper? Well, the Jagran group has reasonably deep pockets. It’s willing to take risks (the iNext project or the various hyper local supplements it has been launching in markets where it has zero presence being prime examples). I don’t think Jagran will dilute the irreverent flavour of the paper… and, no, I don’t think they’ll replace the bikini-clad ‘mates’ with sari-and-veiled behenjis from the hinterland.
However, there’s a lot that needs to be achieved. My personal view is that editorially, the paper could do with some aggressive re-engineering. In its primary Mumbai market, it has lost its editorial constituencies big time. It started with Bombay Times running away with the glamour quotient. Then came Mumbai Mirror, set up with the help of several ex-Mid-Day staffers, which is a big success. The other new papers in the metrop – Hindustan Times and DNA – added to its woes and also ate into some of its top line.
My heart goes out to the Ansaris – specifically Khalid and son Tariq – who have run the paper with enormous energy and enthusiasm. I was with the group for seven years starting 1993, as a deputy editor, when Tariq had briefly taken editorial charge, though as chairman, Khalid would also take an active interest. A prolific writer, Ansari Sr would send his dispatches from across the world and check with the desk if all was well, with the passion of a rookie scribe. Could Khalid and Tariq Ansari have run the paper differently so that they would be more prosperous today and not have sold their print business to Jagran? Perhaps, yes. As someone who has tracked the paper ever since it screamed “Hello Bombay” on a rainy June 27 in the year 1979, it’s sad to see the paper selling out. But, I’m relieved that it’s the Jagran group that has acquired it, which will, I’m sure take the paper – editorially and in business – to greater heights.
Ad Club blues
Very often in its lifecycle, a product, service or organisation loses relevance. Rather than provide the desired effect, it doesn’t achieve what it set out to do. In my mind, the Advertising Club Bombay is one such organisation which has lost all its sheen and glory. Other than a few cool and not-so-cool activities, there’s little else that it does.
It’s not a club with a physical presence like Press Club or a Bombay/ Delhi Gymkhana. So even if as a journalist I may not care much about the Press Club’s activities, it’s a great place (at least in the renovated avatar in Mumbai) where one can drop by in the evening, have a drink and meet old friends. Despite not having a clubhouse etc, given that most of India’s Madison Avenue mandarins are in Mumbai, the Bombay Club is by far the biggest (and most happening) in the country. Well, it still is, though in the last few years, I am not very sure whether it means anything at all to the fraternity.
There would be a time when the club calendar was very active and had some excellent events. As a rookie journalist with The Indian Express, I remember being asked by the Business Editor to go for its meetings and write a two-para report. Later, in the early ‘90s, when I was with Mid-Day, the paper would sponsor many of the club’s activities and I remember covering a few of them. I would look forward to the Ad Club Bombay’s events.
The annual awards – christened Abby in the mid-90s – were the high point of the year. They would go on endlessly but were fun. They turned slick around the time Pradeep Guha took charge as president. All was well until three years back when the industry felt that it made sense to have just one awards event instead of two and so the Abby became an integral part of Goafest. For the first two years of Goafest, the Advertising Agencies Association of India (3As of I) would have its own awards show and there was intense rivalry with the Abby.
So it was with some relief that the Abby went to Goafest. However, that’s around the time when the problems started. The Creative Abby – the mainstay of Goafest – saw its results leaked to The Economic Times in 2008. There was much sound and fury over it, but only to see an encore last year. And once again this year!
There was a bit of an outcry when I raised a few tough questions and asked the Goafest and Ad Club top guns to quit, accepting moral responsibility for the awards leaking for the third consecutive year. None of that happened. Some in adland felt the result leaking wasn’t a great deal. In fact, as I figured, given the number of fake ads that make it to the Abby, not many take the awards very seriously… except of course those who win or don’t win them.
And now we have a fresh controversy with two seasoned men in the industry slugging it out over some reported wrongdoings at the jury meet. The Goafest chairperson was quick to slam a report on the issue, but when it had the opportunity to correct the wrongs, all that the Ad Club came up with last week was a weak statement.
Perhaps we’ll never get to know who did it.
The writer is group chief editor, exchange4media. The views expressed above are his own. This column is published by arrangement with exchange4media.com and impact. Email your comments at pradyumanm@exchange4media.com or via twitter at @pmahesh.