Take back the city tonight...

This is the reference to the headline in case you're interested. And the single is already out on the torrent sites, sometimes I wonder if I am actually downloading faster than I can watch stuff after my speed upgrade with Airtel, which is worth every penny if you ask me.
I still maintain that Mint is beating all other papers hands-down on their financial markets meltdown coverage - tight focussed, no mad large point size headlines but decent, rational coverage. I guess I'm part of a small (but gradually increasing) minority, but as a business journalist I have switched over to Mint as my first business paper. I still read Times of India first - the loo read, but Mint is now the tea read. Don't get me wrong, ET still has a hell of a lot of news, much, much more news than Mint, but you can do a quick scan and get everything. . Other than the political pages of ET, which are dangerously right-wing and quite entertaining (in language terms, but I won't get bitchy now).
Not reading ET in the morning is still heresy, whereas not reading the other papers is quite acceptable - think about it, everybody has a finite amount of time. So two general papers (ToI and EchTee) and two business papers (ET and Papermint) plus Mail Today for sheer entertainment and drama value. I completely agree with Sandip on the point that Mint has taken a massive lead over the others in brand-recall terms. And for that, they have to be congratulated, but I really do not feel there is sufficient space for yet another paper right now. Sure there might be if you consider that a paper is nothing but a billboard printed on paper, but I would rather spend my time doing something more productive than reading ten newspaper.
That said, Mint's on-again, off-again TV venture might never take off if ET TV manages to position their heavy artillery correctly. Though, if I understand correctly from some folks who have shifted there, there is an idea to to have some sort of integration between the supplements and the TV channel. So you'll see Brand Equity and Corporate Dossier on TV. Which given the current state of those two supplements may not be the best idea, they both need a dose of Viagra. Maybe TV will be that Viagra, who knows?
Plus, while Outlook is on the verge of launching a man's magazine, the group could be shutting one of its three business magazines, and given that Outlook Money is a market leader in a very small market, I'm not so sure what that holds for the other two. This at a time when rumours of Outlook's long-term prospects are being bandied about, especially since there is very likely going to be an ownership change. Plus, is the Sakaal Times dream finally over, with one bunch of contracts town up?
Also, the slowdown has meant that some plans of launching additional channels by several groups, including a couple of real-estate companies might be put on hold. Inflation is up, and provional numbers are usually a little off. I don't know if the hold-out will be till the state elections in a few months. Talking about elections, Madam Shiela of the crazy bus project is looking less and less likely to win. When a senior BJP leader whose name has been bandied about as a potential CM of Delhi (but he claims he is better off as a BJP strategist) jokingly says that the "BRT Corridor is imposing economic sanctions on those who live on it", (in context of him missing a couple of court appearances, despite leaving well on time) I have hopes that the project will finally be shown the door.
Only a couple of months to go for the nightmare that two mad professor's placed in South Delhi to be over! Long live democracy! And I'm opening my edition of Spore tonight, so if I disppear for a few days, I'll be on my home PC on a lot of Red Bull.