Pradesh Today

About Pradesh Today

Overview

Pradesh Today is a Hindi-language daily newspaper published from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Launched in 2010 and relaunched on a grand scale on 5 April 2011, it is the first evening daily of Madhya Pradesh — a paper whose distinctive proposition from the start was a full 12-page all-colour edition in international-size format. It is published by Madhya Pradesh Today Media Limited, a Bhopal-based print media company founded by Hradayesh Kumar Dixit, and it circulates in multiple editions across Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, with the company later extending its footprint into Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra. Alongside the newspaper, the company publishes a monthly magazine, runs a news portal and has developed a news channel, making Pradesh Today both a newspaper and the name of a diversified regional media house.

The paper's corporate parent is one of the rare regional Indian newspaper companies to have taken the public-listing route: Madhya Pradesh Today Media Limited listed on the National Stock Exchange under the ticker MPTODAY after a public issue in September 2017. In its management discussions the company has described Pradesh Today as Madhya Pradesh's leading Hindi evening daily and one of the state's most widely read morning newspapers, published from multiple cities with supplements tailored to each.

Hradayesh Kumar Dixit and the founding idea

The founder, Hradayesh Kumar Dixit, hit upon the name "Pradesh Today" in 2010. His idea, as the company's own corporate record puts it, was to enrich the citizens of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh with the happenings of the country and the world, and to keep them updated with fresh information and news — with an added element of what the company calls quick, accurate analysis. That analysis, the company says, is the key element of the enterprise: an "ultimate derivative of stimulation of imagination, emergence of innovative ideas and creative expression."

The ambition was deliberately multi-platform from the beginning. The company was conceived with multiple arms — a monthly magazine, the newspaper, a news portal and a news channel — so that "Pradesh Today" would be both the name and the idea behind the company: a complete regional news brand for central India rather than a single-title newspaper.

Launch and the mega relaunch of 2011

Pradesh Today, the Hindi daily, was launched in 2010 by the company, which was originally incorporated as Madhya Pradesh Today Media Private Limited on 18 November 2010 in the state of Madhya Pradesh. After the initial launch, the company planned to re-launch the product on a much bigger scale — and the mega launching of Pradesh Today was carried out on 5 April 2011.

The relaunch made a distinctive market claim: Pradesh Today was the first evening daily of the state of Madhya Pradesh, and it provided all of its 12 pages in colour, in an international-size newspaper format. In a market dominated by established morning broadsheets, the evening slot — with news fresher than the morning's papers — was the paper's chosen point of differentiation, and the full-colour presentation was meant to make it visibly different on the newsstand.

Evening daily first, morning daily after

Although the evening daily was the flagship, the company also introduced a morning daily newspaper in Madhya Pradesh in 2010, so that readers could choose Pradesh Today in the morning as well as the evening. The company describes its morning title as having remained Madhya Pradesh's third most widely read morning newspaper with the highest readership across the state — while the evening edition retained what it calls the undisputed leadership position, the No. 1 Hindi daily evening newspaper of Madhya Pradesh.

This two-shift strategy — morning and evening editions from the same house — allowed the company to capture both ends of the newspaper-reading day, a model more commonly associated with the great metropolitan newspaper houses than with a young regional company.

Eleven editions across central India

Madhya Pradesh Today Media Limited is engaged in print media and, by its own account, spins out nearly 11 editions. The newspaper is published from different cities and carries supplements for the respective cities, localising its content for each market it serves. Editions have been published from Bhopal, Jabalpur, Indore and Gwalior, covering the principal urban centres of Madhya Pradesh.

After establishing itself across Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the company introduced its newspaper in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra as well — an expansion that took a Bhopal-born title into the national capital's media market and into the country's most competitive newspaper state. The company describes Pradesh Today as "Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh's most emerging Hindi daily."

The public issue and NSE listing

On 5 July 2017, the constitution of the company was changed from a private limited company to a public limited company, and its name was changed to Madhya Pradesh Today Media Limited. In September 2017, the company came out with a public issue of 21,46,500 equity shares, raising equity funds from the public aggregating to Rs 14.17 crore, and listed on the National Stock Exchange of India under the ticker symbol MPTODAY.

The listing made the company one of a small number of regional-language newspaper publishers in India to seek public capital — a step that subjected its finances to the disclosure regime of a listed company and gave it a currency for expansion. The company's key executives are listed as Hradayesh Dixit as chief executive officer and Shantanu Dixit as chief financial officer.

The magazine, portal and channel

True to its founding concept, the company has operated beyond print. Its corporate filings describe its business as the print media and advertisement business, the circulation of newspapers and magazines, and news through an online news portal. The monthly magazine arm extends the brand's analysis-driven positioning into long-form journalism, while the news portal at pradeshtoday.com carries the paper's reporting to digital readers.

The news channel arm completes the four-part structure the founder envisioned in 2010: monthly magazine, newspaper, news portal and news channel — each carrying the Pradesh Today name and the house style of quick, accurate analysis.

Editorial positioning

Pradesh Today's editorial identity is built around state-level coverage: Madhya Pradesh politics, administration, crime and regional affairs, reported for readers in Bhopal and the paper's other edition cities. As an evening paper, its news cycle runs ahead of the next morning's dailies — a structural advantage the company has leaned on since the 2011 relaunch.

The company's own management discussions note that the paper is published with city supplements, allowing each edition to carry hyperlocal content alongside state, national and international news. This combination of a fresh evening news cycle and localised editions is the core of its market proposition in a state with strong incumbent Hindi dailies.

The business of a regional daily

The company's filings situate its business within the broader Indian print industry, which they describe as continuing to grow on the back of demographic and socioeconomic factors, rising literacy, improved penetration and hyper-localisation. They note that Hindi publications have maintained leadership in print advertising volumes, contributing 38 per cent of total advertising volumes because of their expansive reach — the segment in which Pradesh Today competes.

At the same time, the filings acknowledge the structural pressures on print: subscription revenues under pressure, the shift of advertising toward digital platforms, and the temporary dip in government and public-sector advertising during the 2024 general elections under the Model Code of Conduct. For a listed regional publisher, navigating these currents while holding its evening-daily leadership is the central commercial challenge.

Digital and e-paper presence

Pradesh Today is available digitally through its e-paper, which carries the day's Hindi edition — including its regional, national and international coverage — to readers online, and through the news portal at pradeshtoday.com. The e-paper is listed with editions from Bhopal, Jabalpur, Indore and Gwalior, published daily in Hindi and available free of registration. The company's filings note that for the first time digital media has emerged as the largest segment of India's media and entertainment landscape, surpassing television — a shift that makes the portal arm of the Pradesh Today group increasingly central to its future.

Pradesh Today in Madhya Pradesh's press

In a decade and a half, Pradesh Today has gone from a 2010 start-up to a listed media company with eleven editions, a magazine, a portal and a channel — claiming the No. 1 evening-daily position in Madhya Pradesh and a top-three morning readership. Its story illustrates a newer model in the Indian regional press: the newspaper as one arm of a diversified, publicly listed media company, built around an evening news cycle and full-colour presentation. For the readers of Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur, it remains what its founder intended it to be — the state's own "today", delivered twice a day.