This was something that most Chennaiites waited for a long time. The old lady of Bombay finally stepping into the city of one of the best and the reputed newspaper of the country. The launch of The Times of India was talked about for a very long time. But finally on Monday it actually got launched. It will be interesting to see how TOI manages to break into the long and everlasting presence of The Hindu. The newspaper that has virtually managed to be a part of every Chennaiites routine. Whoever I am talking to these days is sadistically hoping that TOI breaks the monopoly of The Hindu. Some say they want a break from the ‘commy’ blah blah of Hindu (these are not my words, mere stating of people’s views so Hindu lovers please don’t mind!!) some say they need a spice in their daily news, which TOI hopefully would provide. So the reasons are long and never ending.

It is interesting to see how the print war in Chennai would turn out to be. Because i remember two years back Mumbai witnessed the same boom in the newspaper market. There was launch of Daily News and Analysis or DNA which poached all the Big guys from TOI, DNA again threatened to wipe out the market of TOI, by aggressive marketing campaign and with a hope of delivering fresh insight into news, DNA’s entry was grand. Then followed The Hindustan Times, which again propagated its famous tag line “Le there be light”. Two years down the line the print war has mellowed down. Probably newspapers have figured out their respective audiences

So who ate into whose share still remains a question but it probably encouraged these papers to innovate and break the monotony. Chennai i hope will have the same signs it is probably good news for readers who can expect some good reporting. Apart from this the benefits are also to reporters who have shifted from one paper to the other and managed to get fat salaries ;) advertisers who would probably figure out a better target audiences and people like me who have managed to find something to talk about!!! And as one wise man pointed out once upon a time “Nothing is permanent but change”, so way to go Chennai