The Times of India began on 3 November 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce, became a daily in 1850 and was renamed in 1861. Bennett, Coleman and C…
The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce first appeared on 3 November 1838, twice a week, for Bombay's merchants and officials.
In 1850, under its second editor George Buist. In 1857 he refused shareholders' calls to soften his pro-British line and was replaced.
Robert Knight merged it with the Bombay Standard and renamed it The Times of India in 1861. He also became Reuters' agent in India.
In 1892 Thomas Jewell Bennett and Frank Morris Coleman acquired the paper through Bennett, Coleman and Co., the company that still publishes it.
The paper cut its price from four annas to one, and circulation rose about five times, by its own account.
Industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia. A 1955 inquiry found the deal was funded with money moved from a bank and an insurer he chaired.
The Delhi edition opened in 1950. For 40 years it trailed the Hindustan Times there.
Yes. A court put a government-appointed board in charge from 1969 until 1976, when the Jain family got it back.
It cut its Delhi price to Rs 1.50 and added city supplements like Bombay Times. By 1998 HT was second in Delhi.
Most accounts say 1996, the year the group also launched Indiatimes. The group says it sold 1 million copies a day that year.
Audited sales peaked at 3,184,727 copies a day in late 2016, more than twice any other English daily in India.
In May 2023 the Times Group split: print with Samir Jain, radio and TV with Vineet Jain.
1,837,731 copies a day in July-December 2025, up from 1,640,418 earlier in the year.
Writer Sarah Kendzior said a July 2026 TOI story about her was fabricated. It was later removed. Trust is the new battleground.
Read the complete story, FAQs and key facts.