After waiting for about an hour and a half at the offices of the new business paper ‘Mint’ from Hindustan Times (HT), I wasn’t hoping for a half-interview, but that’s what happened: too much fluff.
Rajan Bhalla, the publisher of Mint believes that the level of involvement is higher with a published paper than a website. If you dispense with the fluff, here’s a gist of my discussion with him:

About the Wall Street Journal Partnership
Mint has 100 percent access to WSJ content, from over 1900 journalists across the globe. HT is already full up on the 26 percent FDI that print publications in India are allowed, so an equity partnership with WSJ isn’t possible yet.
The Competitive Scenario
He says that television lacks the credibility that print has, and there is a demand for global news in a booming Indian economy. Also, there’s no real No.2 in the print market - 70 percent is with the Economic Times (ET), priced at Rs.2, and 30 percent is split between the Hindu Business Line (HBL), the Financial Express (FE) and Business Standard (BS), which are priced higher. Pricing Mint on par with ET means they compete on value. They are also targeting readers who (acc to him) get overwhelmed by the amount of news in other dailies and prefer to read magazines – like professionals between 25 and 30, and women. Bhalla didn’t comment on how they plan to beat the the ET-Times of India combo offer in Delhi. However, he did say that with a 75,000-80,000 print run, the Mint was No.2 from day one...though as per ABC figures that FT quotes here, BS and the HBL sell more copies than that.
The no-poaching agreement with ET hasn’t troubled them. They have around 150 people, and from what I’ve heard, they’ve hired extensively from other newspapers and magazines.
About Online and Mobile
Livemint.com is supposedly still in beta, and 30 percent of their 6000 unique users a day are from outside India. Mint is in the process of selecting an agency for an online viral marketing campaign. They haven’t really leveraged HT Online yet. The total advertising budget (including online and offline) is around Rs.10 crore.
Bhalla also said that the WSJ content they are linking to is behind the paid subscription wall – but that isn’t the case. They’re linking to free WSJ content...There’s an e-paper in the works, so won’t that allow readers online access to WSJ content, albeit at a different site?
Mint will be launching mobile and more Internet features over the next couple of months. Alex So, who is heading the website development efforts, says that they are considering blogs and podcasts, and could look at personalization and customizations. A couple of reviews of the website: here (mine) and here.
On Content Alliances
When I asked him if they’re planning content exchanges with other websites like Rediff or Sify, Bhalla said they’re already aggregating links to content from other sites at livemint.com, under the heading ‘Views’. I checked and there was no aggregation being done at livemint. Bhalla wouldn’t confirm any content alliances or whether they are in talks anyone - magazines or TV. What stops WSJ from picking up content from us, he asks.