Time Out Mumbai: published in English with an initial print run of 35,000
Time Out has launched a local edition in Mumbai in response to a growing cultural scene in the Indian city in the past five years.
Time Out Mumbai will be based on the traditional format of the UK edition, with local reviews and previews of cinema, nightlife, restaurants and music. It will be published fortnightly, in English, by licensee Paprika Media, and will have an initial print run of 35,000.
Editor Naresh Fernandes said the theatre and independent film scene had grown and the city had seen an increase in local writing.
Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, now boasts more than 1,500 theatre performances a month, 30 art exhibitions a fortnight and 75 nightclubs.
Speaking from Mumbai, Fernandes said: “It’s a Bombay mag for people who live in Bombay. It was a big city in terms of numbers, but culturally things were a little dormant.
“Over the past five years, suddenly the theatre scene has expanded in four languages. There is a whole independent film scene that didn’t exist before outside of the commercial movies that Bollywood turns out, and because of digital cinema and digital technology, there is a huge documentary scene going on. There is a lot more local writing.”
Fernandes has recruited an editorial team of seven.
Prior to Time Out, he worked for Associated Press in Bombay and was on the foreign desk of The Wall Street Journal in New York.
The latest move follows the launch of the first Asian Time Out – Time Out Beijing – in May and the success of guidebooks to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Shanghai and Tokyo.
The launch brings the total number of Time Out editions worldwide to 10.
There are plans to launch a Shanghai edition later this year.
By Ruth Addicott
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