Launch of The Economic Times in India by Bennett Coleman and Company Limited.

The Economic Timeswas launched in India on 5th March 1961 in Mumbai, as a full fledged financial newspaper with an objective of functioning as a platform to promote economic debate. It had the legacy of The Times of India as it came form the same stable BCCL or Bennett Coleman and Company Limited.

P S hariharan was the editor of the newspaper from 1961 to 1966, Dr. D K Rangnekar took over and served for 11 years from 1967 to 1978. He was followed by Dr. Hannan Ezekiel who worked as an editor in the years 1979 to 1985 and Manu Shroff was teh editor for two years between 1985 to 1987. These were the initial years of The Economic Times that is today the largest selling as well as the largest read financial newspaper in India. The masthead of print is going across to the broadcasting domain with ET Now the television channel slated to be launched in June 2009.

The circulation of the newspaper was about 11,000 copies in 1961 and rose to about 23,000 copies in 1970. It used to carry Stock Market Listings that most of the newspapers do even today and commodity market analysis.

1970 to 1980

This decade saw the launch of two new editions viz. Delhi (27th March 1974) and Calcutta edition was launched in 1976. The circulation tribled due to additional editions to 62,000 in 1979. In the next decade 1980 to 1990 the focus shifted from pure stock market to Management targeted at junior and middle managers and by the end of the decade the circulation was touching 1,00,000 copies.

1990's

The focus changed to new features on perception, branding, insights, infotech. Sub brands like Investors Guide, Brand Equity and ET Esquire (Now Corporate Dossier) were launched and this decade saw ET coming of age as a full fledged information powerhouse on all aspects of business; Economy, Management, Branding, Advertising. The focus shifted to the individual from the corporate and the all important Invitation Pricing was introduced in 1992.

By the middle of 90s decade the circulation had soared to about 3.5 lac copies and growing. It was the envey of any media conglomerate anywhere in the globe. This decade also saw a slew of new editions that were launched in Bangalore in 1990, Ahmedabad in 1994, Madras in 1994 and Hyderabad in 1995. As per National Readership Survey it was being read by .9 million people and as per Indian Readership Survey it was being read by over a million readers every day.

ET on the Internet

Website of ET was launched way back in july 1996 and was available at www.economictimes.com and inspite of many a changes over the years the address has remained more or less the same. It is good 13 year old story and it is amazing that people still call internet the new media. The timelines would mean that there will be entire generation of youngesters that are born in India that always knew that they can read The Economic Times on the net. The New Media tag is most probably being applied by people that have spent most of thier life with Doordarshan being the only channel available.

Historical Competition

Historically say in mid 90 ET had three competitors in Business Standard (Published by The Kotak Group), Business Line (The Hindu), Financial Express (The Indian Express). Clearly ET was way ahead of any competition was considered business magazines that had robust advertising revenues as its main competition.