Times Group launches subscription-based media platform ET Prime

With a promise to offer deeply rooted, reliable and well-researched business stories, The Times of India group has launched its subscription product ET Prime.

ET Prime, according to its site, will cover Finance, Consumer Markets, Economy and Policy, Media and Communications, Corporate Governance, Climate, Pharma and Healthcare.

ET Prime claims to bring readers long-reads that unravel the hidden trends, people, and things. “We are biased towards depth, not necessarily length, in our storytelling,” it says.

The service is priced at Rs 2,499 for a year and Rs 799 quarterly. It offers 15-day free trial for readers.

Entrackr had first reported the development in March that Times Group was in process to launch subscription-based publication ET Prime.

ET Prime is Times Group second attempt into subscription space, first being Times Crest started in October 2009. The Crest edition was primarily a print publication mix of news and feature content.

However, the group shut it down in 2013 in the wake of low readership.

Meanwhile, ET Prime team will be led by Editor Shishir Prasad, and Associate Editor Tanmoy Goswami.

In the subscriptions business segment, ET Prime will be primarily competing with The Ken.  In comparison to ET Prime, The Ken is priced at Rs 2,750 for a year period ($108 for international readers) and Rs 1,500 ($35 for international readers) quarterly.

While the Ken does one story a day, it is still not known how many stories ET Prime plans to push in a day. It appears to do more than one story especially looking at its broad categories and team-size, which comprises 21-member.

So far, the Bengaluru-based company had secured little over $600K in funding from the likes of Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Aprameya Radhakrishna, Girish Mathrubhootham and Pallav Nadhani amongst others.

Other media content firms VC Circle and Business Standard also offer subscription-based products.

This is early years for abovementioned subscription products, though there’s an indication that subscription online can work. Given the reach and dominance of Times Group in the media business, Industry experts believe that ET Prime has the potential to drive subscription.

Whether it can or not, only time will tell.