Friday, December 5, 2014

Re: [prpoint] TOI adopts Yellow Advertising - Deccan Chronicle

 


On 5 December 2014 at 10:52, Richa Seth richa.seth30@gmail.com [prpoint] <prpoint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Dear All,

 

Some of you might have read an article from today's Financial Chronicle where Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited., has filed a criminal complaint against  The Times of India for publishing ads free by lifting them from Deccan Chronicle. It states that once Deccan Chronicle publishes a series ad it is followed by The Times of India a few days after they appeared in Deccan Chronicle complete with DC's name, CA codes and box numbers which are unique to the newspaper and to each person who advertises in DC's classifieds section. Please read the complete article in the enclosed email.

 

We being communication consultants and advisors to many leading corporate what are your views on the credibility of this newspaper?

 

Look forward to an interesting discussion on the above.

 

Thank You.


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ToI-ING WITH THE READER

 

While most newspapers will publish advertisements for a certain sum and news is never paid for, the leading paper of India has turned this on its head. It publishes paid news, but ads are free. That anyone can get anything published in The Times of India for a price is well known. Ask the movie industry how much it pays to get good reviews and lead stories!

But what Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited discovered is that while you have to pay The Times of India to get news published it ironically publishes ads free by lifting them from Deccan Chronicle. Deccan Chronicle will publish in a series ad after ad that appeared in the ToI a few days after they appeared in Deccan Chronicle complete with DC's name, CA codes and box numbers which are unique to the newspaper and to each person who advertises in DC's classifieds section!

Is it any wonder that the court recognised this as a cognisable offence and has asked the police to investigate the systemic theft of classifieds from the pages of Deccan Chronicle?

A criminal complaint was filed by Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited by the advocate before the court and the court was pleased to direct the police to investigate against the so-called market leader under Indian Penal Code Sections 120B, 379 and 467 and a FIR was registered thereafter.

This must be the most perverted case in the history of India's print journalism. So used is ToI to using its money power to railroad every local publication that The Times of India had no clue what hit them when it entered the Hyderabad market. While it celebrates nearly 14 years of publication here it has yet to win the chance to celebrate being the leading paper here and the Hyderabadi has stood steadfast by the Hyderabadi newspaper through all its travails.

When it could not fight Deccan Chronicle fairly in the market, The Times of India tried its best to run DCHL down with a regular run of stories on its financial woes. When that did not work, it pillaged DC's classifieds and went on to brag about its classified ads.

From early January 2013 to somewhere in June some 1,000-odd classified ads that appeared in DC also landed in The Times of India, albeit a few days later. This was when DC was uploading its Net edition in PDF format where it is easy to download and use. So lazy was it that it happily copied DC's style, spellers and even DC's codes, etc. It was funny that the classifieds in The Times of India would ask people responding to "their" advertisements to contact Deccan Chronicle.

Naturally DC moved to the jpg format in lower resolution and that is when the pillaging of ads became difficult and the quantum dropped. This was when ToI unleashed an ad blitzkrieg aptly coloured yellow. Even as The Times of India began lifting DC's advertisements with impudence their hoardings had the cheek to take a swipe at DC, the newspaper it was freely lifting content from. "Don't like No 1?", it ran, a clear reference to the No. 1 paper, Deccan Chronicle.

Readers would have heard of 'yellow journalism'. Yellow advertising? Why does ToI do it? The measure of a newspaper's success lies in the response to its classified ads. Anyone who had advertised in Deccan Chronicle will vouch for the tremendous response they get.

Thousands of loyal readers advertise with Deccan Chronicle every week. These are not large commercial advertisers. They form DC's acknowledged base among individual families who love the newspaper and stay involved with it. The Times of India, in unabashedly plundering DC's advertisements, was not just trying to shine in reflected glory but undermining Deccan Chronicle and cheating its readers.

DC's readers have clearly said they do not like it. And they have lodged written complaints. They are outraged. They had struck their bargains and the repeat ads made them look like they were betraying the trust of the buyer by looking for better deals!

Most Deccan Chronicle advertisers are inundated with customers. They strike a good bargain within hours. By placing a classified advertisement with DC, they had signed a contractual agreement not only for the publication of the advertisement on the specified date but also one of exclusivity.

They had voted with their feet and their money for Deccan Chronicle. And what do they find? The self-proclaimed 'market leader' publishing advertisements which they gave Deccan Chronicle. The market leader now owes the police, the courts, the readers and DC an explanation for their unscrupulous acts.

 

http://www.mydigitalfc.com/views/toi-ing-reader-219

 


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Best Regards,
Richa Seth

PR Consultant
Mob: 9930143531

Email id:
richa.seth30@gmail.com

Twitter | Linkedin |Blog 




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