''Divya Bhaskar'' () is a Gujarati newspaper in

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, 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 List of states and union territories ...

, India, 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 ( ), also spelled 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 ...

Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is a city situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district. The city is named for its abundance of banyan ...

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

Rajkot Rajkot () is the fourth-largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the ...

, Jamnagar, Mehsana, Bhuj,

Bhavnagar Bhavnagar is a city and the headquarters of Bhavnagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. It was founded in 1723 by Bhavsinhji Gohil. It was the capital of Bhavnagar State, which was a princely state before it was merged into the Dominion ...

(as ''Saurashtra Samachar'') and

Junagadh Junagadh () is the city and headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located at the foot of the Girnar hills, southwest of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital), it is the seventh largest city in the state. It i ...

(as ''Sorath Bhaskar'').
DivyaBhaskar is published in Junagadh from 27 March 2011.

History

In 2003, the

Bhopal Bhopal (; ISO 15919, ISO: Bhōpāl, ) is the capital (political), 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 ...

-based Bhaskar Group identified

, Gujarat as the city with highest potential for the fourth launch of Dainik Bhaskar outside

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

(MP). It surveyed 12

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. F ...

() 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 Newspapers established in 2003 {{India-newspaper-stub