Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL) is currently owned by the SREI group after ailing for two years. Deccan Chronicle was Andhra Pradesh’s largest English daily and with its unbiased journalism for the last 75 years, this newspaper has earned the respect of readers all over the country today.
Deccan Chronicle was the brainchild of Sarojini Naidu’s son, a homeopath, M.N. Jaisoorya, journalist Theodre La Touche and advocate, B. R Chari. This idea of “everybody’s newspaper” for Hyderabad was received by Rajagopal Mudaliar who was a supplier of paper to Nizam of Hyderabad’s press and hence, Deccan Chronicle was born in 1938.
It was a newspaper full of patriotism in the period before independence but mounting debts could not be repaid and the ownership was sold to T. Chandrashekhar Reddy in 1977 and thus began the episode of Deccan Chronicle’s modernization. His son T. Venkattram Reddy was associated with the newspaper from his young age of 21 and became the editor-in-chief after his father’s death in 1993. He hired P.N.V Nair to expand Deccan Chronicle and increase the circulation and very soon the newspaper climbed above 100,000 circulation figures. Deccan Chronicle became the largest circulated English daily in Hyderabad.
The story of Deccan Chronicle took a turn when T.V Reddy bought a stake in Asian Age with the flamboyant Vijay Mallya. Thereafter, rapid expansion of the group began in other diverse unrelated sectors. In 2003, Nellore edition commenced and on March 28, 2005, Deccan Chronicle launched the Chennai edition and by 2006, the circulation grew to over 2, 95,000 copies in Chennai alone. In the year 2008, Bangalore edition was launched along with financial daily Financial Chronicle. Coimbatore and Kochi editions were launched in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
During this period, Deccan Chronicle became one of the major players in the print media industry. The production capacity of the plants were increased from 3, 15,000 copies per hour to 4, 35,000 copies per hour. New colour printing facilities were set up in Kondapur in Hyderabad and the company began an alliance with various national and international print and entertainment industry giants to spread its wings.
With success came lavishness of Reddy’s lifestyle and soon credit was running into crores. By a short span of time Deccan Chronicle accumulated a debt of Rs. 4000 crores. In the financial year 2010-11 for the first time Deccan Chronicle reported decline in profit and sales since it was listed in 2004. Meanwhile in 2012, Deccan Chargers the IPL team owned by the company got involved in spot fixing scandal and the franchise was later bought by Sun Network’s Kalanithi Maran for Rs 85 crore, and renamed Sunrisers Hyderabad.
By 2011, share prices were falling and the debt of the company came into public light. Reddys took several off-balance sheet loans by pledging their promoter shareholding in Deccan Chronicle Holdings. As there was an increase in claims from the lenders, in 2012, six company directors resigned from the board. In the year 2013, Deccan Chronicle Holding published its last annual report. It was total mismanagement with huge debts. February 8, 2015, T. Venkattram Reddy was arrested by CBI for defaulting on his loans taken using false documents & dozens of other charges including forgery, criminal breach of trust and misrepresentation.
As per Indian Readership Survey 2013, the readership of Deccan Chronicle has declined to 337,000. In 20 years time Deccan Chronicle has seen it all. It was a small newspaper of regional reach and it grew up to be a newspaper of national reputation with very high circulation and readership but declined due to mismanagement by its promoters. However Deccan Chronicle still continues to be published.
With comprehensive news and analysis, Deccan chronicle is still trusted and is a household name in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. With presence in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry, Vishakapatnam, Anantapur, Karimnagar, Nellore and Coimbatore districts Deccan Chronicle is a good platform to advertise in these regions. Advertising in Deccan Chronicle reaches out to specific English readership of the districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
To facilitate and simplify newspaper ad booking for Deccan Chronicle, releaseMyAd was incepted in 2009. This online self serve platform allows both classified as well as display booking for Deccan Chronicle across all categories. With a simple click of mouse from the link https://deccanchronicle.releasemyad.com/ ads can be booked for Deccan Chronicle.
For booking related queries, designing, composing and budgeting, the customer support desk is available on the Phone/ WhatsApp number 9830629298 or email address book@releasemyad.com. 24*7 Live Chat support can also be availed from the website for swift response.
