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The ''Daily News and Analysis'', abbreviated as ''DNA'', is a
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
-language news program on
Zee news Zee News is an Indian Hindi-language right-wing news channel owned by Subhash Chandra's Essel Group. It launched on 27 August 1999 and is the flagship channel of the Zee Media Corporation. The channel has been involved in several controve ...
that was earlier an English-language newspaper with multiple local city editions across India. ''DNA'' was first launched as a broadsheet newspaper out of
Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
,
Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
on 30 July 2005 through a 50:50 joint venture between the
Zee Media Corporation Zee Media Corporation Limited (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is an Indian mass media and news broadcasting company based in Mumbai. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting news and current affairs, and re ...
and the
Dainik Bhaskar ''Dainik Bhaskar '' () is a Hindi-language daily newspaper in India which is owned by the Dainik Bhaskar Group. According to the World Association of Newspapers, it ranked fourth in the world by circulation in 2016 and per the Indian Audit ...
group under the company name Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. The newspaper had first launched its outdoor advertising campaign through billboards and placards in Mumbai during early 2005, with the tagline, "Speak Up, It's in Your DNA", which became its catch-phrase over the months. With the announcement of the launch of ''DNA'' came several other rival newspapers by large media conglomerates in the city, including the first-time-ever Mumbai edition of the predominantly north-Indian ''
Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter o ...
'' and the ''
Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...
''s rival the ''
Mumbai Mirror The ''Mumbai Mirror'' is an Indian English-language newspaper published in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Launched in 2005 as a compact daily newspaper, its coverage focused on city specific local news and civic issues concerning education, healthcare an ...
'' newspaper that was later digitised into a web portal during the pandemic. The competition battleground between the three media conglomerates led to a massive spike in journalists' salaries in Bombay by almost 40–50 per cent of the earlier market rate, or even more, in the 3–4 months prior to the launches, as journalists began receiving hefty counter-offers from the opponent publication they were set to be joining. It also saw a hike in salary of internal staff in TOI's
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
office in order to ensure the editorial staff could be retained. Finally, the
Times Group Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), d/b/a the Times Group, is an Indian media conglomerate based in Mumbai. Notable media properties owned and operated by the group include India's largest selling daily English-language newspaper ''The ...
signed anti-poaching agreements or pacts with ''
The Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter of K. K. Birla. ...
'' and ''
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...
'' of Calcutta in May 2005, in order to restrict themselves from hiring and poaching each other's staff."Times Group signs non-poaching agreements with HT and Telegraph".
''exchange4media''. 30 May 2005.


Coverage

''DNA'' catalysed several shifts in the Indian news media over the years. Its focus began with developing
hyperlocal Hyperlocal (also reckoned Hyper-local) is an adjective used to describe something as being "limited to a very small geographical area", and in particular, to anything " tremely or excessively local", in particular with regard to media (commu ...
teams of reporters around Mumbai covering news from around the neighbouring municipal localities such as
Thane Thane (; previously known as Thana, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city located on the northwestern side of the list of Indian states, state of Maharashtra in India and on ...
and
Vashi Vashi is a residential and commercial node in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, across the Thane Creek of the Arabian Sea on the outskirts of city of Mumbai. Vashi is named after the largest village present in Vashi Node. Overview Vashi is well-c ...
"DNA Newspaper Attempts Mission Impossible".
Rohin Dharmakumar. ''Forbes India''. 27 September 2010. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
and the eastern and western suburbs of Mumbai as well as the iconic south Mumbai town area — through regional reporting bureaus managing the news coverage for ''DNAs local ''Zone'' and city pages. Over the years, the paper further expanded into local editions at Surat and Ahmedabad, then Pune, then Jaipur, then Bangalore, then Indore, and finally Delhi. Diligent Media Corporation Limited used to also bring out the business broadsheet newspaper ''DNA Money'' from
Indore Indore (; ISO 15919, ISO: , ) is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The commercial capital of the state, it has been declared as the List of cleanest cities in India, cleanest city of In ...
, to cover business and finance, as a standalone sister newspaper to ''DNA'' during 2006, and it used to publish several women-centric and youth-centric lifestyle magazines too such as ''DNA Ya!'', which was a supplement targeted at kids and young adults.


Closure of print operations

The paper had begun to suffer tremendous losses over the years; it started shuttering its operations in Surat shortly after its launch, and, by 2012, Zee had taken over the rest of the ownership of ''DNA'' from the Bhaskar group. It had also shut down its lifestyle magazine ''Me'' in 2010, citing that the paper's business was geared more towards news and that "the magazine business was dropping" as a whole. By August 2014, the newspaper had also shut down its Bangalore and Pune editions and, in February 2019, it also closed the Jaipur and Delhi editions. In October 2019, Zee Media Corporation announced that the entire newspaper (including the remaining editions in Ahmedabad and Mumbai) would be closed with the aim of optimizing costs and reducing the company's losses.


TV show

Zee News Zee News is an Indian Hindi-language right-wing news channel owned by Subhash Chandra's Essel Group. It launched on 27 August 1999 and is the flagship channel of the Zee Media Corporation. The channel has been involved in several controve ...
continues to host ''DNA'' as a weekly news bulletin show, which is a prime-time
Hindi-language Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''lin ...
programme hosted on the channel between 9.00 pm to 10.30 pm every weekday from Monday to Friday. The show had begun in 2012 with news anchor Sudhir Chaudhary as its host, who had rejoined the channel in a second career stint. Chaudhary, who had launched the Sahara Samay channel for Sahara TV prior to this, had earlier also been with Zee till 2003. Rohit Ranjan took over the DNA show in July 2022 after Chaudhary left to join ."Rohit Ranjan returns to host DNA on Zee News".
''exchange4media''. 19 July 2022.
Chaudhary told ZMCL chairperson Subhash Chandra in his resignation letter that he was intending to use his fan following to start his own venture at some point, while Chandra stated that he had attempted to persuade Chaudhary to stay back.Why did Sudhir Chaudhary leave Zee?
" Tanishka Sodhi and Ashwine Kumar Singh. ''Newslaundry''. 2 July 2022.


References

{{reflist Newspapers established in 2005 Newspapers published in Mumbai English-language newspapers published in India Daily newspapers published in India Essel Group 2005 establishments in Maharashtra