Indiantelevision.com Team

(29 August 2006 8:30 pm)

MUMBAI: The National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) has released the findings of the National readership Survey (NRS) 2006. The study covers 7000 cities, towns and villages, 284,000 individuals and 535 publications.

Once again Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar lead the circulation tally. Dainik Jagran's circulation though fell slightly to 21.1 million from 21.2 million last year. Dainik Bhaskar saw a rise to 20.9 million from 17.3 million last year. In The Five million club list Eeanadu rose from over 11 million to over 13 million.

Dinakaran made big gains. Last year it was in the 39th spot. This year it is at number eight with a circulation of over nine million compared to one million last year. The Hindustan at number six managed to touch 10 million in circulation.

Newspapers are aggressively marketing supplements notes NRS which is why people get the newspaper later in the morning than they used to earlier.

The battle heats up in English & Hindi Dailies arena:
There are now two dailies that have captured more than 20 million readers - Dainik Jagran (with 21.2 million) and Dainik Bhaskar (with 21 million). The gap between Dainik Jagran & Danik Bhaskar has reduced from 3,800,000 readers to 200,000 readers this year.

The Times of India is the most read English daily with 7.4 million readers, but The Hindu has taken the second spot with 4.05 million readers, pushing Hindustan Times, to the third spot with an estimated readership of 3.85 million. Though Hindustan Times has added 360,000 new readers in Mumbai, it has lost readership across the Hindi belt.

The 5-Million Club

The 2-Million Club

Magazines are having a struggle: Magazines overall show a decline in the reader base, both in urban and rural India. The reach of magazines has declined from 75 milion in 2005 to 68 million in 2006. Magazines have lost 12 per cent of their reach since 2005.

Topping the list once again were Saras Salil a Hindi Publication and India Today. India Today fell from 6.2 million last year to 5.1 million this year. Salil fell from 10 million to 7 million. Vanitha though at number three gained. Its circulation rose from 3.8 million to 4.1 million.

Dailies continue to grow, adding 12.6 million readers from last year to reach 203.6 million while there has been a drop of 7.1 million magazine readers. NRS though says that this refers only to mainstream magazines.

A host of niche titles that continue to be launched regularly are not fielded and their collective readership estimate is outside the purview of the study. Over the last three years the number of readers of dailies and magazines put together among those aged 12 years and above has grown from 216 million to 222 million - a growth of almost three per cent over last year.

Scope for growth: NRS says that there is still significant scope for growth, as 359 million people who can read and understand any language do not read any publication. Of this 359 million, 68 per cent read Hindi. It is not just affordability that is a constraint, since 20 million of these literate non-readers belong to SEC A and B..

The Hindi belt has been witness to intense activity from large dailies and is an indicator of the general growth in the vernacular dailies segment. To elaborate, vernacular dailies have grown from 191 million readers to 203.6 million while English dailies have stagnated at around 21 million.

Press increases its share of urban media day: Today the average urban adult spends 44 minutes per day reading dailies and magazines. The average reading time used to be 41 minutes.

On a more general note NRS notes that among the SEC A,B segment it is those in the 20-24 year age bracket who consume media the most. In terms of purchasing power it is the high flying metrosexual and the infoseeker who is curious about information who have the most purchasing power. NRS had done a cluster analysis and five clusters had emerged. The other three clusters were the me too consumers,. the new age women and the small town conservative. Clusters were done on several criteria including television channels watched, radio stations listened to and topics of interest.

In the mega metros like Mumbai it was noted that marketers could reach 61 per cent of consumers through the emerging media. For the conventional media it is around 90 per cent. Emerging media can certainly be used as an alternative particularly in the case of the metrosexuals and the infoseekers.