Vineet Jain, who first joined The Times Group in 1988, has an enviable legacy, not only as a far-sighted strategist who diversified the group into all other media beyond Print, but also as the chief content architect for newspapers, TV, Radio and online platforms, whose initiatives have subsequently become templates for the rest of the industry. After being appointed the Deputy Managing Director in 1993, and Managing Director five years later, he has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of the group- marketing, cost functions, HR, brand management etc.
When he had first joined the Times Group, Jain was involved in the overall content strategy and its execution, including pagination, design, editorial innovations of the main newspapers, i.e., The Times of India, The Economic Times and Navbharat Times. Herein, he was instrumental in introducing the now standard template of localisation of news in a national newspaper by very significantly expanding the edition-specific city coverage of TOI by increasing these pages and deepening focus. This was the first time this was done for a national newspaper on such a scale. Vineet Jain also helped fine-tune and structure some of the other sections of the newspaper which have stood the test of time. The visionary realised several decades ago that shorter news articles could pack in more variety, and were critical to garner readers’ attention at a time when the Internet was beginning to emerge on the horizon. As part of this, he introduced a brief, Times Views- one paragraph boxed edits in the news pages of TOI & ET- so that readers could be drawn into analysis of the news item even as the boundary between news and views was maintained.
Hence, the newspaper’s architecture and its content strategy was modernised by Jain, who had emerged as the group’s chief content architect by the late 1990s. These building blocks for the modern newspaper via seminal changes in content strategy and architecture (alongwith the innovations like invitation/cover pricing and subscription schemes helmed by Vice Chairman Samir Jain), were responsible for the TOI pulling ahead of Hindustan Times in Delhi by the late 1990s. In fact, in all, over 60 percent of his focus in the last 30 years has been on newspaper and digital news. Vineet Jain was also deeply involved in the launch of major TOI editions like Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata - from content strategy to overall planning and execution. Infact, his indepth involvement in further revamping the Bangalore edition’s content eventually allowed it to pull ahead of its long established rivals. The newspaper had hitherto either been absent or had had a very limited presence in these markets.
Just how his rigorous and detail-oriented approach embraced readers’ needs for more news-they-can-use and introduced more reader-friendly content like stocks listings, crosswords and reader engagement sections, film reviews, etc in the main TOI newspaper, in the same way Vineet Jain is also credited with pioneering lifestyle and entertainment journalism in India. He conceived of and executed the TOI edition-wise supplements like Delhi Times, Bombay Times, etc, which brought in lakhs of younger readers and new audience segments with their visually appealing all-colour focus on health, fashion, fitness, films, entertainment etc. These were a runaway hit with advertisers and have been copied right across the newspaper industry in particular, and amended to other platforms like TV and Digital, in general. More importantly, these have become the entry points for entirely new genres of advertisers, for fashion, design, health, fitness, wellness etc, for Indian newspapers to cater to aspirational new audiences in post-liberalisation India.
Industry experts point out that Vineet Jain understands youth and urban culture like no other media owner. Infact, the creation of lifestyle journalism across media triggered a huge new events industry with entirely new audiences and advertisers. Again, Times Group has led the way here. While initially the Times’ lifestyle supplements were the driving force for advertisers to sponsor events, as the group helped mature and professionalise the industry as a whole, events of all genres became a separate major revenue stream, and this model was subsequently picked up across media.
Apart from this legacy in publishing, Vineet Jain has diversified the group beyond Print, into every other possible media space. He, early on, recognised the elemental challenge of the Internet, and hence the TOI was one of the first newspapers to start a website in 1997, with Times Internet Ltd established in 2000 spawning a large number of digital entities that made it India’s largest digital media house.
But well before that, in the mid 1990s, Vineet Jain was perhaps the only Indian media owner who recognised the power of Radio. Times FM was the first private entity to broadcast on AIR, and it was transformed into Radio Mirchi (now Mirchi) once private FM radio stations were allowed by the government. Mirchi remains the market leader to this day-- cementing his place as the godfather of the Indian FM Radio industry.
Vineet Jain also made early forays into TV but wisely stayed away until the dust of scores of other entrants had settled. But after the entry of Times Now (and Times Network’s clutch of other pathbreaking channels), Indian news television will never be the same again. Vineet Jain has, therefore, been responsible for transforming the Times Group from a print newspaper and magazine publisher into one of Asia’s largest media conglomerates. He has done this by putting the reader, viewer and listener first, anticipating every shift and change, using technology and industry-wide best practices and building a world-class team that matches his trademark rigorous work ethic. As a towering industry leader who has left an enviable legacy for Print and other sectors of the media industry by rewriting many of the rules and transforming content, strategy and profits- across every part of the Indian media value chain, it would be interesting to see the next chapter he scripts for the industry which is yet to unfold.
In 2016, Vineet Jain, driven by his commitment to excellence, embarked on a new venture in higher education by establishing Bennett University in Greater Noida. In 7 years, Bennett University has emerged as one of the leading private universities, with a sprawling 68 acres campus enabling an immersive and comprehensive learning experience.
In 2013, the exchange4media group awarded the IMPACT Person of the Year title to Vineet Jain because of these reasons and his pioneering role in building the industry .
While the popular perception is that Vineet Jain has built new businesses like TV, Digital and Radio in the Times Group, it would be prudent to note that Vineet Jain joined TOI in 1988 at the age of 21, and contributed significantly to the print side of the business over the next three decades. When Vineet Jain joined his father Ashok Jain and older brother Samir Jain, the mainstay of the business was the dominant print and newspaper business.
While Samir Jain is rightly credited with leading and guiding and strategising the Response, Monetisation, Invitation Pricing in the last three decades-plus and now Brand Capital in the last 15 years, the younger Jain contributed tremendously to the print business and newspaper business also working alongside his older brother Samir Jain.
Senior executives recall Vineet Jain driving and being fully involved in running and leading the newspaper and print organisations. He was fully involved in human resources and hiring and leadership mentoring and supervision. Jain was also involved in the product and marketing side of the newspaper and the print business. Vineet Jain was also involved in taking decisions on the editorial architecture of the editorial print products, right from conceptualising the new entertainment supplements which the entire media industry adopted post initial criticism.
Vineet Jain also contributed to the city supplements and the hyper localisation of news within the newspapers and made sure that these supplements became an editorial force as well as a revenue contributor.
Over the last 36 years of Vineet Jain being active at the Times Group, he was actively involved in administration, printing and all aspects of management. He also helped in taking these newspapers to the internet more than two and a half decades back; the newspapers sites were launched under his leadership.
Vineet Jain’s imprint on the Times Group has been tremendous and it started in print, but through his pioneering approach, he has led the process of building a futuristic conglomerate.
