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Sambhar Mafia - Cooked To Kill!

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

THE BAKWAAS TIMES

I pity the Indian business leaders & policy makers who have to read this newspaper everyday. How do such newspapers climb to the top slot? Posted by Hello

posted by Kaps at 3:08 PM

25 Comments:

  • It is a pity that "The Economic Times" needs to sought these type of gimmicks to stay in the market.

    Is it because, they need to talk about all sorts of business?

    When I was in India a decade back, I used to read this newspaper as bible (even if some news are hard to understand or digest) next to 'The Hindu'.

    I believe, the magazines /newspapers' standards hv come down generally, to meet the circulation numbers stipulated by the management.

    It applies to quality tamil magazine like 'Ananda Vikatan' also. If you look into the pictures & photos in the magazine, the quality can be assessed very well. The "family" magazine has become a "mass" magazine to compete with the likes of 'Kumudam' & 'Kungumam'.

    By Blogger Ram C, at 4:58 PM  

  • Alas.. after the Indian films and Indian Magazines like Outlook and Today using Sex to sell, it looks like Quality papers like Economic Times too following suit. This has been in the pipeline for years after TimesofIndia started their magazine section (like Delhi Times) which was peddling such stuff in the name of Glamour and Fashion!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:50 PM  

  • I guess ET/TOI tries to imitate Newspapers of the West .Inge sex related news attracts first page .But ET/TOI need not use atleast those words ,just to stay in the market..A standard shd be maintained..

    By Blogger Adaengappa !!, at 7:02 PM  

  • hi
    this comment is nothing 2 do with the post.i tried hello to post pictures onto my blog but it is not working .normally how long does it take to post a photo using hello.when i try posting the photo the status shows sending 1 of 1 or sent 0 of 1 and nothing really happens.please lemme know any suggestions .

    By Blogger Aravind, at 8:46 PM  

  • Simple Sir,
    Sell what people buy. In TOI also, they have increased the content related to bollywood, hollywood,sex, cricket and other Page 3 stuff. Half of the articles are related these things. They must have done some analysis to do so.
    So what ET can do, if people like to read bakwaas stuff ? Give them what they want. :)

    By Blogger coolsun, at 9:49 PM  

  • the print version of ET is not as 'Page 3-ish' as the online version.still crappy though.

    By Blogger BeehaG, at 10:48 PM  

  • Please don't call ET a business newspaper. They used to be pretty OK even a few years back (late 90's),but they just dish out trash these days....

    By Blogger Cogito, at 11:40 PM  

  • Let us call it "Iconoclastic Times" - it will more suit their irreverent (and irrelevant) style of reporting :-)

    By Blogger Krish, at 3:01 AM  

  • It is not only the Economic Times.. but also the IndiaTimes.com has been folowing on the same lines. It is like all the arms of the TOI group are taking que from each other.

    I have put up a small article regarding IndiaTimes.com in my blogs. Here is the link..

    http://www.cyd.liu.se/~kamva881/blogs/musings/

    Regards,
    Kamesh.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:10 AM  

  • It has been like this for quite some time. Whenever I go to samachar.com, all i see are links like: Sizzling Shilpa shetty said this.. or, dusky bipasha crosses the road.. so on.
    standards have fallen alarmingly. i only hope it is a passing phenom..

    By Blogger tt_giant, at 3:12 AM  

  • hey kaps, who is not thinking of sex ? Everyone is ....so why single out Economic times......

    By Blogger singman, at 9:10 AM  

  • ET has 'evolved' from being a financial newspaper to Business newspaper to General newspaper thereby redefining its Target Segment!!! - As told by a Sr. Manager in Times

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:28 PM  

  • Ram,
    I also used to read ET from top to bottom during my MBA entrance exam & post-MBA interview days. The problem is that there is no real competition in the Business newspaper category. others such as Business Standard, Financial Express and Business Line are not so impressive in terms of content / design.

    I agree that the general standard of print media has declined a lot...this might be due to the fact that they are facing increasing competition from 24 hour media like TV.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:00 PM  

  • Coffee Maker,
    Thanx 4 dropping by. It is understandable if magazines like Outlook and India Today use such gimmicks as a significant portion of their sales is based on news stand sales. News stand sales depends on the cover story / cover page and they resort to such cheap tactics. In contrast, a significant chunk of ET's revenue will come from monthly paid subscribers and hence they need not do such stuff to promote impulse buying.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:03 PM  

  • Adaengappa,

    Newspapers should have a moral responsibility to maintain some ethical standards. ET/ ToI think that people will buy their newspapers irrespective of what they write. They have even started a lifestyle channel called ZOOM recently.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:09 PM  

  • Aravind,
    It takes about 2 minutes for the photos to be posted on Blogger. You will get a message saying that the photo has been posted to your blog. I guess u can fiddle around and sort it out. If not try the help function. if you are still unable to do it i request you to try other photo hosting options like Flickr, Photobucket etc.
    Thanx 4 visiting my blog.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:11 PM  

  • RaviM,
    Going by the rate at which ToI group is recruiting MBA's, I feel that these guys might be the reason for all this analysis.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:13 PM  

  • Chennai Blogger,
    The print version can only be better than the online version. In the online version all sensational article will be posted in the main page as headlines.

    Other sober stuff such as Markets, Forex, etc are hidden somewhere and discerning readers should look for such stuff on their own.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:16 PM  

  • Cogito,
    If ET is not a Business Newspaper then how should be classify them? ToI announced recently that they are going to come out with a "serious" current affairs newspaper in Mumbai. I suggest that they come out with a similar "serious" newspaper for the Business and financial community.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:20 PM  

  • Thennavan,

    ROTFL

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:21 PM  

  • Kamesh,

    I read your article as well. Since the ToI group is good in writing such sensational stuff they have started doing the same stuff across all their newspapers.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:22 PM  

  • TT Giant,
    Do Samachar, Indiatimes, ToI, ET etc have a business model like the Pay per click (Google Adsense) model where they get some revenue whenever the user clicks on a photo / article / link. In such a case their tactics will bring in lot of revenue. I also agree that the standards have fallen drastically. ToI group leads the pack as it is the trend-setter.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:24 PM  

  • Singman,
    Thanks 4 dropping by. Nobody is stopping them from thinking about sex. Let's them not put it under the masthead of the financial newspaper of one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 6:28 PM  

  • Kaps...good article..now a days all dailys have become more of a tabloid than a national daily! sad state !

    By Blogger IBH, at 10:17 PM  

  • Dude, TOI is also a crap newspaper like this. I have seen only sensational crap in that newspaper which is always questionable!

    By Blogger Twin-Gemini, at 1:37 PM  

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