Lok Sabha elections spur newspaper readership

New Delhi: The readership of newspapers in the country continued to grow in 2014 on the back of the general election, according to the latest findings of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS).

Hindi-language newspapers continued to dominate the top three positions in the IRS report, released by the not-for-profit Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI).

Dainik Jagran, the Hindi newspaper owned by the Jagran Prakashan group, remained the market leader in terms of average issue readership (AIR) at 16,631,000, up from 15,527,000 in 2013.

At 14,746,000, Hindustan, the Hindi daily from Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd, a unit of HT Media Ltd (which publishes Mint), was ranked No. 2, ahead of Dainik Bhaskar with an average issue readership of 13,830,000. Dainik Bhaskar is published by DB Corp. Ltd.

AIR of any publication is the number of people who claim to have read the publication within a time period equal to the periodicity of the publication preceding the day of interview.

The top 10 newspapers listed by MRUC saw an increase in their average issue readership except for the Malayalam paper, Mathrubhumi, which saw a marginal decline. The rest among the top 10 are Dainik Jagran, Hindustan, Dainik Bhaskar, Malayala Manorama, Daily Thanthi, Rajasthan Patrika, Amar Ujala, The Times of India and Lokmat.

In a statement, MRUC said that the report reflected the impact of the general election campaign on media consumption pattern during the IRS fieldwork.

“The new round of data will enable users to study the market and media trends...the data was validated internally as well as by a third-party audit,” it stated.

The total sample size at an all-India level for IRS 2014 was 238,000.

For the readership data, which will now be released annually, MRUC added Telangana as a separate state in 2014.

At a pan-India level, The Times of India from Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd saw a 5% growth in readership, while Hindustan Times grew at 4%. However, in Delhi, Hindustan Times consolidated its No.1 position with a readership of 16,85,000 compared with 14,08,000 of The Times of India. In Mumbai, Hindustan Times remained the No. 2 most widely read paper, and saw a 5% readership growth. The Times of India also grew by 5%, adding over 100,000 readers and remained No. 1.

Among the business dailies, there was no change in the rankings as The Economic Times continued to lead the pack with an all-India readership of 834,000. Mint came No. 2 with 3,04,000 readers. The Economic Times is published by Bennett, Coleman and Co.

Business Standard, the financial daily owned by Uday Kotak of the Kotak Mahindra group, saw a significant 25% jump in readership to 181,000 in 2014.

Both The Economic Times and Mint saw growth in their average issue readership at 16% and 12%, respectively, in 2014 over 2013.

Among the regional newspapers in the top 10 rankings, Malayala Manorama’s readership grew from 8,565,000 to 8,803,000 in 2014.

Tamil paper Daily Thanthi saw its number grow from 8,156,000 in 2013 to 8,283,000 in 2014.

Mathrubhumi, the only paper which saw a decline in readership in IRS 2014, lost 116,000 readers. Lokmat, the newspaper ranked number 10, added 286,000 readers.

To be sure, the IRS data for 2013 was mired in controversies ever since the property was re-launched under the new methodology.

Released in January 2014, the IRS data came under fire from newspapers which saw their readership numbers decline.

The data was initially put under abeyance. However, after the revalidation exercise and an independent audit of the findings of IRS 2013, MRUC said in a statement that the voluntary abeyance on the findings was lifted with effect from 20 August 2014.

Media buyers now seem pleased that the new numbers are out.

“It’s good that the numbers are out. For the past two years, we have been relying on historical data and practically living without a currency. This is scary for any media, especially, print,” said Mallikarujun Das, chief executive, Starcom MediaVest Group, a media buying agency.

Added Nagesh Alai, group chairman of the advertising agency FCB Ulka: “In the Indian milieu, the newspaper readership will continue to stay relevant and so, the industry will continue to have to subscribe to this available data.”

He, however, wasn’t sure if turning the survey into an annual report was a good idea. “Readership change is an ongoing pattern. Quarterly data may be too short a spell to take decision, while annual may be a bit too long. The answer lies somewhere in between.”

Vidhi Choudhary in Delhi and Arzoo Dina in Mumbai contributed to this story