Nawa-i-Waqt
Nawa-i-Waqt Urdu daily has always been one of the most influential newspapers in Pakistan, preceding the country’s creation in 1947 by seven years and leading the campaign for carving out a ‘Muslim Pakistan’ from a ‘Hindu India’. Through the decades it has continued with its professed mission to protect and promote the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ in terms of Islamic nationalism through its firmly right-of-centre position on various issues. Nawa-i-Waqt is part of the Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications owned by the Nizami Family.
The group also owns The Nation, a daily English newspaper; Phool, a monthly Urdu magazine for children; Family, a weekly Urdu magazine for women; Nida-i-Millat, a weekly Urdu current affairs magazine; and Waqt News, an Urdu news channel (which went defunct in late 2018).
Audience Share
14%
Ownership Type
Private
Geographic Coverage
National
Content Type
Paid content (PKR 20)
Media Companies / Groups
Nawaiwaqt Group
Ownership Structure
Rameeza Majid Nizami owns Nawa-i-Waqt newspaper by virtue of family inheritance. On the print-line she is credited as the editor. She is the daughter of Majid Nizami who inherited the title in 1962 from his brother Hameed Nizami after he died the same year and who founded the newspaper. Both her father and uncle were eminent journalists with long and distinguished journalism careers behind them. Rameeza inherited the title after her father Majid Nizami passed away in 2014 although she had been working for the newspaper before that. On the print line Hameed is credited as ‘founder’ and Majid as ‘consolidator’.
Voting Rights
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Individual Owner
General Information
Founding Year
March 23, 1940
Affiliated Interests Founder
(3 Oct 1915-22 Feb 1962) was supportive of both Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his All India Muslim League that successfully spearheaded the campaign for establishment of Pakistan. Mr Majid Nizami (Apr 3, 1928-Jul 26, 2014) served as chief editor and publisher of Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications after the death of his brother Hameed. Majid’s daughter Rameeza Nizami succeeded his father in 2014. In 2007, Hameed expanded the Nawa-i-Waqt Group’s media empire by launching The Nation, an English language daily newspaper in 2000 and Waqt News current affairs TV channel in 2007 (which went defunct in late 2018). Hameed’s son Arif Nizami served as editor of The Nation newspaper until 2008 when family differences forced him to branch off on his own and founded the Nawa Media Group. In 2010 he launched Pakistan Today English daily, the country’s first newspaper published in the Berliner format. In 2015 he became the CEO of Channel 24 Urdu news channel. For a three-month period in early 2013 Arif also served as caretaker information and broadcasting minister.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
is officially inherited the influential Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications from her father after his death in 2014 but had already joined the group in 2009 and worked to help both the groups flagship dailies, Nawa-i-Waqt and The Nation, modernize for new times by shifting their erstwhile ideological focus from right-of-center to the center. In 2018 she also decided to close down Waqt News TV channel about a decade after it was launched to cut business losses for the media group. Rameeza is known as an astute professional and shuns publicity unlike most of Pakistani editors but remains an active participant of the newspaper industry’s representative association, the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS). She served as its senior vice-president for the period 2015-16. Her estranged uncle, Arif Nizami, operates a parallel media group, the Nawa Group, and is the editor of Pakistan Today English daily newspaper and CEO of Channel 24 Urdu news TV channel.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
is the editor at Nawa-i-Waqt. There is no editor-in-chief position at Nawa-i-Waqt. Very little information is available about Syed Afaq Hussain.
Affiliated Interests other important people
is arguably one of the most well-known journalists in Pakistan’s media history. He was the chief editor and publisher of Nawa-i-Waqt group of publications having taken over the helm after his founder brother Hameed Nizami died in 1962. Majid was known for his strong personal nationalistic bent that extended to a professed mission for his group of publications. He was an ardent supporter of ‘Nazaria-i-Pakistan’, or ‘’Ideology of Pakistan,’ which the state roots into an anti-India omnipotent policy. For the period 1999-2014 he served as the vocal chairman of the ‘Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust,’ established by late Punjab Chief Minister Ghulam Hyder Wyne in 1992 with the professed mission of promoting the ‘ideology of Pakistan’. He served as the editor of Nawa-i-Waqt newspaper for an astonishing 48 years and was bestowed with some of the highest state honours for civilians, including Nishan-e-Imtiaz (Order of Excellence), Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) and Sitara-i-Pakistan (Star of Pakistan). By the media industry itself Majid was bestowed the Living Legend of Journalism Award in 2010 and Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 by the All Pakistan Newspaper Society.
Contact
23 Queens Road, Lahore, Pakistan
Tel.: +92 42 3636 7551-54; +92-42-111 222 007
Fax: +92 42 042 363 67583, +92 42 3636 7616
Email: rnizami@nawaiwaqt.com.pk
Website: www.nawaiwaqt.com.pk
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
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Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
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Advertising (in % of total funding)
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Market Share
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Further Information
Headlines
Meta Data
The media outlet was sent information request on 11 January 2019 through a courier company as well as by email. There was no response to the request. A reminder was couriered on 1 February 2019 and emailed on 4 February 2019. There was no response from the outlet to date. The Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications does not have a dedicated website showcasing basic information about its media outlets, owners, shareholders, revenues and other relevant information and neither do the websites of Nawa-i-Waqt or The Nation. The audience data was obtained from Gallup Pakistan for the year 2018.