Mid Day is one of the major newspapers in Mumbai. Apart from being one of the most popular newspapers in Mumbai, it has the highest readership in Mumbai after Times of India. But it does have that extra something, that manages to beat TOI. There has been a lot of controversy about the Mid-Day Mate in the past few months. I will discuss these and many other things in my review.
NEWS
Mid Day is very good when it comes to delivering the latest news because of the 4 editions (First Edition, City Edition, Late City edition and Final Edition) it prints in a day. But the minus point is, that apart from the first few pages, and the headlines, the rest of the paper is almost the same.
The news articles are interesting to read and are in simple language. The information provided is in depth. One plus point is that Mid Day gives lots of news on day-to-day incidents, accidents, and crime that takes place in the city everyday. TOI has more news about political issues and they miss out on such important news. Mid Day does not have a lot of news on political issues. But looking at the political instability of our government and the corrupt politicians, I would restrain from reading such news, and that is the area the Mid Day scores in.
SPORTS NEWS
The Sports News coverage is very good and probably the best. They are not one-sided like TOI, and don't give unlimited news of cricket. They have good coverage of Tennis, Football, Formula 1 and Badminton. And what about the Local sports news? Mid Day IS KNOWN for Local Sports news and gives a lot of encouragement to the local heroes!
SUNDAY MID DAY
Sunday is a day for relaxation, away from the hectic life of the city. So, to wake up in the morning and read Sunday Mid Day is a pleasure. It does not contain a lot of news but has a lot of fun, gossip and humour. With supplements like Lifestyle, etc. you enjoy reading the recipes and articles. You also have two columns of jokes. The T.V. program guide given with the List is very helpful.
SUPPLEMENTS
Mid Day scores high on supplements. With daily supplements like The List and Surfboard.net, it provides you with a lot of good info. The T.V. programs' guide printed in the List is very accurate and has program schedules of all the popular as well as the less-popular channels.
Formerly, Surfboard was given as a supplement but now it is printed as a section of the paper itself. But they now focus a lot on their own website, chalomumbai.com, and don't many of us know how poor the website is.
Recently, it introduced a new supplement- the Mid-Day Buyer's guide. It has all the information you need to purchase a product, mostly electronics. It is very good and interesting to read.
Another very good supplement is Funday, which comes along with Saturday's edition of Mid Day.
There are other supplements like the Big Break, too. Sunday Mid Day has good supplements like Lifestyle.
DAILY COLUMNS 1/2
Mid Day and Sunday Mid Day have many columns written by authors as well as their daily sections like VOICES, The Buck stops here, Mailbag, etc. Among the authors are Shobha De, Arvind Kala, Anil Thakraney, Pinto and others. They all write very good articles and are always precise and frank. You can express your views and opinions in VOICES and Mailbag, and explain problems in your area to K C Srivastava, the municipal commissioner.
Apart from these, you also have columns by Cyrus Broacha, Chaitanya Padukone, Narendra Kusnur, etc on the film industry, and movie and music reviews by Deepa Gahlot and UJ.
ADVERTISEMENTS
Mid Day is really better than TOI in advertising. TOI has 3-4 advertisements on almost every page. Mid Day does not go beyond the limits. The rates too are just right.
CLASSIFIEDS 1/2
Mid Day has one of the largest classifieds, but it is very clogged up. But you can manage to get the required details you need.
FUN & GOSSIP
The cartoons published in Mid Day are very good. Ponnappa, Broadside and Reverse Sweep by Austin are very funny.
The column 'Jest Like That' (3rd page) has a new joke everyday, but most of them are copied from the 'Laugh Lines' column printed in Sunday Mid-Day. On the other hand, 'Laugh Lines' has good and original jokes. The List serves as a good medium for gossip.
ASTROLOGY
This is one plus point of Mid Day that no other paper can beat. Who can forget the column on astrology by Marjorie Orr? Marjorie is a renowned astrologer around the world and her predictions are very accurate. She also gives predictions on the year ahead of you if its your birthday. I always read her predictions and I find them to be very correct.
MID DAY MATE
I got confused when I had to rate the Mate. After all, how do you rate a semi-naked girl? There has been a lot of controversy about the Mate, known famously as the Page 3 girls. The original idea was started by The Sun which first published a skimpily clad girl on the 3rd page. Since then, many papers have tried to start printing such pictures, including Mid Day. In spite of so many complaints sent to Mid Day to restrain from printing these photos, they still continue to do so.
The Mate has been a plus point as well as a minus point for Mid Day. Some people PURCHASE Mid Day only for the mate, whereas others DON'T PURCHASE Mid Day only because of the mate. Many may feel that this is a wrong way of gaining popularity, but Mid Day is also losing popularity. Mid day is too good a paper to print the Mate to gain popularity and readership.
The Bottom Line
Mid Day is a very good paper. It has a very good size, which is ideal for a newspaper. The size suits the office-going people who travel in buses and trains and buy a newspaper to read. TOI's paper size is too big. The quality of the paper and the pictures is good. The best thing about Mid Day is that it follows a very good format. There are certain columns that are so good, that people purchase Mid Day for that very column.
The best thing about Mid Day is that they don't get afraid of taking risks, and don't hesitate in introducing new things in their paper. For instance, take the new look and format of the paper for its 22nd Anniversary. They tried something new, and it worked out for them. On the other hand, other papers stick to the same thing, and people do get bored to see the same thing again and again.
The List is a very good supplement and provides enough gossip. I cannot comment a lot on the Mate as many people see it as a plus whilst many see it as a minus. I think a poll should be held and if more people oppose the printing of the Mate, then they should stop printing it.
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