Chennai: After years of rumours about its entry into Chennai, the country's largest media company Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited, (publishers of the Times of India and The Economic Times) seems to have finally decided to bring out the Chennai edition of its flagship product, the TOI.

While the paper's top brass are tight-lipped, the indications are that the Chennai edition will come out sometime during the second half of this year.

The paper's corporate director, group, recently visited Chennai and had a series of meetings here. It is learnt that negotiations for acquiring the necessary machinery is on. It is also said that till TOI sets up its own printing infrastructure here, printing will be outsourced from at least two printing presses.

Sometime back, the group had called for applications for senior editorial positions for its southern operations as well as for other posts.

The decision to launch the Chennai edition seems to stem from the perception that the Chennai market likes the Times group products. The group's FM radio, Radio Mirchi ranks at the top amongst FM radio channels here. It may be recalled that Tamil Nadu's largest circulating Tamil newspaper, Daily Thanthi, sources one page of business stories from the group's financial daily The Economic Times.

More importantly the The Economic Times is the second largest circulating English daily in Chennai after The Hindu. This only shows the huge business potential.

As a matter of fact, the Times group had plans of bringing out a daily supplement-ET City - as a part of The Economic Times - carrying city news. This was planned as a prelude to the launch of TOI.

Though interviews were conducted to hire journalists and the reporters of the financial daily were asked to have a bank of Chennai centric stories to take care of initial days, the plan was suddenly shelved.

In addition, the Tamil Nadu government too seems to favour TOI's entry after its recent skirmish with the city-based , The Hindu.

Finally, the Times group does not want to lose out as another English daily, Deccan Chronicle, which will soon be launching its edition here, which is completing its infrastructure building activities.