BSMotoring

About BSMotoring

BSMotoring was an Indian monthly automobile magazine published by the business newspaper Business Standard, written for the country's car and motorcycle enthusiasts. It began life in 1995 as a single page devoted exclusively to automobiles in the Business Standard paper, became a standalone quarterly in 1998, and switched to a monthly in January 1999. Over 18 years with Business Standard it built a reputation as one of India's most enthusiast-driven auto magazines — the default reading, at its peak, for petrol-heads who wanted writing by genuine motoring lovers. In April 2013 the Delhi Press group acquired the title from Business Standard and, later that year, rebranded it as Motoring World, retiring the BSMotoring name.

Origins as a newspaper page

BSMotoring's story began not as a magazine but as a single page in the Business Standard newspaper in 1995, dedicated exclusively to automobiles — an unusual commitment at a time when Indian newspapers rarely gave the motor beat its own editorial space. The page's popularity among readers led Business Standard to turn it into a standalone quarterly magazine in 1998, and the quarterly became a monthly offering in January 1999. The magazine therefore grew up with the Indian automotive boom of the late 1990s, when liberalisation brought a flood of new models to Indian roads and created, for the first time, a mass audience for motoring journalism.

First Car of the Year award

In 1996, BS Motoring became the first automobile magazine in India to announce a 'Car of the Year' award — a landmark in Indian motoring journalism that established the template other publications would later follow. The award signalled the magazine's ambition to set standards for the industry rather than merely review new cars, and it gave the young publication credibility with both readers and manufacturers. The annual honours became one of the title's signature institutions through its Business Standard years, lending weight to its verdicts in a market where automotive awards were still a novelty.

The Business Standard years

For 18 years the magazine was part of the Business Standard group, circulating in the 12 markets of the business newspaper. During this period it cultivated a distinctive editorial voice: less about glossy posters and advertorials, more about what Team-BHP's editors at the time called "real love of the Automobile" — road stories, enthusiast features and reviews written by people who genuinely cared about driving. The magazine's writing was widely regarded as some of the most enthusiast-oriented in Indian motoring media, and back issues remained prized enough that collectors kept attics full of them long after the name changed. Editorially, the title was run from Mumbai under Business Standard, with Srinivas Krishnan serving as editor through its final years.

Sale to Delhi Press

In January 2013, Business Standard and the Delhi Press group opened talks over the magazine's future; Business Standard, primarily a newspaper publishing house, had been trying to sell the title for months because it felt unable to give the magazine the focus it wanted. The deal was finalised on 15 April 2013 between Paresh Nath, editor-in-chief and publisher of Delhi Press, and T. N. Ninan, chairman of Business Standard, with the formal takeover concluded on 16 April 2013. Trade reports estimated the deal at around Rs 10 crore. Delhi Press began publishing the magazine from the May 2013 issue, and both the editorial and business teams moved with the title to the publisher's offices. For Delhi Press, it was the first acquisition of an English-language title and a deliberate step to widen its portfolio beyond its traditional Hindi and regional magazines.

Headquarters move and new editorship

The acquisition shifted the magazine's headquarters from Mumbai to Delhi. Srinivas Krishnan, who had resigned as editor earlier in 2013, went on to join Porsche India as head of communications. Pablo Chaterji, who had been associated with the magazine for about a decade, was named the new managing editor. The move to Delhi and the change of editor marked a clean break in the title's institutional life, setting the stage for the rebranding that followed. Under Delhi Press, the magazine also gained access to a far wider circulation network: after April 2013 its distribution widened through more than 3,000 distribution agents covering large parts of both North and South India, a major expansion from its earlier newspaper-linked footprint.

Rebranding as Motoring World

Later in 2013, Delhi Press rebranded BS Motoring as Motoring World, completing the title's transition from a newspaper supplement brand to a standalone lifestyle-enthusiast magazine. Anant Nath, director of Delhi Press, said the magazine had carved a well-placed niche over the years as a publication devoted to auto-enthusiasts and lovers, and that the new identity would continue shaping it to stand apart through its "cliquish flavour, bold visual representations, innovative columns, nuanced writing and varied topicality". Managing editor Pablo Chaterji described Motoring World as positioned for a premium, sophisticated audience, with a clean, spare, classy design and writing that was nuanced and authoritative yet witty and irreverent — deliberately given the look and feel of a lifestyle magazine. The BSMotoring name thus ended its run, though its content, staff and enthusiast lineage continued under the new masthead.

The Delhi Press publisher

The Delhi Press group that acquired the magazine is a family-run publishing house then 74 years old, best known for some of India's best-known titles in various languages: the women's magazines Grihshobha, Sarita and Woman's Era, the children's title Champak, and the long-form journalism magazine The Caravan, revived in 2009. Paresh Nath, who joined the family printing and publishing business in 1970 alongside his father Vishva Nath, ran the company as editor-in-chief and publisher; his son Anant Nath, director of the company and editor of The Caravan, handled the acquisition and the magazine's repositioning. With about 35 magazines in its stable, Delhi Press viewed the purchase as a way to grow its English-language portfolio — it had also recently acquired Kannada and Hindi magazines on the verge of closure — and BS Motoring was the first English acquisition of many under its expansion strategy.

Editorial character

What readers remembered about BSMotoring was its soul: the magazine was not about glitzy pictures and posters but about driving itself — road trips, mechanical sympathy, the enthusiast's way of looking at cars and bikes. Coverage ranged from new-model road tests and comparison reviews to long-form features on motoring culture, columns on the industry, and the annual Car of the Year deliberations. The magazine served as an authentic forum for what Delhi Press called "worthy auto-aficionados": readers who read for the writing and the judgement as much as for the specifications. That editorial character was deliberately carried into the Motoring World era, with the publisher promising to keep the title's cliquish, enthusiast flavour even as the design and presentation moved toward a premium lifestyle look.

Legacy

BSMotoring's 18-year run under Business Standard left a permanent mark on Indian motoring journalism. It was among the first Indian publications to treat the automobile as a subject worthy of serious, enthusiast writing in English; it created the country's first auto magazine Car of the Year award in 1996; and it proved that a newspaper-born motoring title could grow into a standalone monthly with a devoted national readership. The magazine's sale in April 2013 — driven, as contemporary coverage noted, by the pressures of online media, a tough economy and declining print circulation — became one of the emblematic media deals of the era, and its rebirth as Motoring World ensured that its editorial lineage survived the change of ownership.

Readers can find the magazine's continuing presence online at bsmotoring.com.