''Divya Bhaskar'' () is a

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

newspaper in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, owned by D B Corp Ltd. It is one of the highest circulation Gujarati dailies. With the most local editions in Gujarat, it is published from

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per ...

Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capita ...

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is ...

, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Mehsana, Bhuj, Bhavnagar (as ''Saurashtra Samachar'') and Junagadh (as ''Sorath Bhaskar'').
DivyaBhaskar is published in Junagadh from 27 March 2011.

History

In 2003, the

Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It i ...

-based Bhaskar Group identified

as the city with highest potential for the fourth launch of

Dainik Bhaskar ''Dainik Bhaskar ''is India's largest Hindi-language daily newspaper owned by the Dainik Bhaskar Group. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is ranked 3rd in the world by circulation and is the largest newspaper in India by circu ...

outside

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the second ...

(MP). It surveyed 12 lakh () households, with a team of 1050 surveyors, 64 supervisors, 16 zonal managers and 4 divisional managers. The surveyors were gathered largely through posters at colleges and word-of-mouth publicity, instead of expensive print and TV advertisements. Nearly 40-50% of the surveyors were later absorbed in Dainik Bhaskar or Divya Bhaskar, while the rest were given a certificate of appreciation. The team was trained to reach out to 8 lakh () households in Ahmedabad and 4 lakh () households in adjoining districts, in a time span of 40 days. The newspaper was launched in Ahmedabad on 23 June 2003, under the name Divya Bhaskar, as No. 1 with 452,000 copies (a world record). Within 15 months, it entered two more cities of Gujarat:

and

. To counter the Bhaskar's group's threat, the leading Gujarati newspapers came up with color pages, price reductions and several high-value customer offers. However, by 2009, Divya Bhaskar became the largest circulated Gujarati daily with 11.5 lakh () copies. The group's pre-launch door-to-door twin-contact launch program has been recognized as an orbit shifting innovation. It has won Business Process Innovation award by Marico Foundation, and is a case study in several B-schools including Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and SPJIMR. The case study reveals, Divya Bhaskar become most popular among all other Gujarati news papers because of its erotic news and relationship related column. Following its launch, ''Divya Bhaskar'' has become the largest circulated daily of Gujarat according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (India) and has the most local editions by any newspaper in Gujarat.

References

2003 establishments in Gujarat Gujarati-language newspapers published in India Mass media in Ahmedabad Publications established in 2003 {{India-newspaper-stub