Udayavani, the Kannada daily published by the Pais of Manipal, has a new editor from today: Ravi Hegde.
Hegde, former editor of the Rajeev Chandrasekhar-owned 24×7 Kannada news channel Suvarna News, joins the paper published from Bangalore, Mangalore and Bombay at a time of great churning in the Kannada media. He has been designed group editor, and there is a front-page, column one announcement in today’s edition.
The former Vijaya Karnataka editor Vishweshwar Bhat joined Kannada Prabha as editor-in-chief ten days ago. Ravi Hegde was executive editor of Kannada Prabha, before leaving to join the Suvarna stable.
The Kannada daily market is dominated by Vijaya Karnataka, owned by The Times of India group, and Praja Vani, belonging to the Deccan Herald group. The two are followed by Samyukta Karnataka and Kannada Prabha.
The Pais of Manipal—pioneers in banking and education—intend giving the 5th placed, 42-year-old Udayavani (average issue readership 8.9 lakh, IRS Q3, 2010) a push with the new editor and new editions.
Sudhakar Babu, till recently marketing head of Vijaya Karnataka, has joined the Manipal Group as director marketing in a move replete with possibilities.
Image: courtesy Udayavani, photograph via Facebook
IJR 
This is awesome!
In one stroke, Vijay Karnataka(as they spell it)’s monopoly got decimated and readers will get more than two readable newspapers from now! 🙂
Hope, somebody starts a decent competition to the monopoly in Mysore … how about a Mysore Mirror?
Nice to have an young editor to udayavani. I hope, with youth voice pushes ahead, udaya vani chill the youth beats. I expect more coverage on youth relevant articles and let the paper comply with teen trend.