Recently released IRS Round 9, marks a significant departure from earlier surveys. And provides insights into the changing mediascape. It has recorded a new leader amongst Dailies in Delhi, a stats strongly contested by the dethroned king.

In a significant departure from traditions, data from this Round of IRS isn't a rolling average of the current and previous rounds (IRS methodology merges data from the new round with the previous one to present 'average' data). Reason? The current round of IRS is based on latest Census 2001 demographic data, where significant changes vis-a-vis last Census, have been recorded. Citing that "Population changes (recorded in Census 2001) will even out by merging the two rounds defeating the real time estimates," IRS Technical committee decided to present data for a single Round (for period between Nov 19, 2001 and April 19, 2002) only.

The survey also notes a shift in SEC composition, bases the new census data. The percentage of households in top SEC bracket (AB), have reduced by 1.4 %.

Read the detailed commentary on IRS Round 9.

Lets note some highlights:

Dailies are the most popular medium to reach urban Indian. All Dailies put together reach 52.4% of Urban Indian households (or 108.5 mn) while all satellite channels reach just over 50% households. Magazines reach about a fourth of Urban Indian households. But the data changes significantly when we refer to Rural India. Given the lower levels of literacy, DD outscores print media. Refer Table 1 below.

Chart 1: Media Reach

	Urban		Rural		Urban+Rural
Media	Mn	%	Mn	%	Mn	%
Any Daily	108.5	52.4	107.5	21.5	216.1	30.6
Any C&S	104.5	50.5	61.2	12.2	165.8	23.4
Any DD	100.9	48.8	158.3	31.7	259.3	36.7
Any Magazine	53.4	25.8	41.4	8.3	94.9	13.4
Radio	30.6	14.8	75.4	15.1	106	15
Cinema	25.4	12.3	29.9	6	55.3	7.8
Internet	7.8	3.7	1.2	0.2	9	1.3

A look at top Dailies underscores the dominance of Hindi newspapers. Four Hindi newspapers are part of top 10 dailies at an All India level. These four Hindi newspaper account for about 50% of total readership recorded by all top 10 dailies. Amongst Hindi newspapers, Dainik Jagran has moved closer to the leader - Bhaskar, recording 1.35 crore readers.

Refer Top Publications charts for key languages. Click here.

In the business magazine genre, where there has been much activity recently, the survey records low readership gains. While Business Today leads the pack, with 7.27 lacs readers (grew by 3%), the genre has shown a decline of 1.4%.

Ravi Moorthy, Vice Chairman, Center for Excellence, MRUC, in a presentation, highlighted that while according to Census 2001, population has grown by 21% (North grew much faster @ 27%) over the last Census 1991, the 'projections' used in earlier surveys were higher than the 'actual' Census data. If the projections were used, the total population size (12+ yrs) would have been over projected by more than 1.5 crores. Needless, it would have impacted the media and product consumption trends.

Increasing urbanization is another trend where projections basis Census 2001, would help. Over the last decade, Census has recorded a rise number of cities. For instance, number of cities with population more than 40 lacs has increased from 5 to 7 cities. Such movement of the population will have implications on the sampling frame and the sample spread and hence in the media and product consumption estimates.
Refer Chart 3 below.

Chart 3: All India- Number of towns per town class

	Census 1991	Census 2001
T 40L +	5	7
T 10L - 40L	18	28
T 5L - 10L	30	36
T 1L - 5L	243	317
T 50K - 1L	341	394
T Below 50K	2936	3391

Survey has also let loose a debate that will not die down soon. According to the Survey, Delhi as the new leader in Times of India. The survey records that Times of India has 11.3 lacs 'average issue' readers in Delhi while Hindustan Times has 10.7 lacs. For the last round, figures read, 10.7 lacs for Times of India and 11.1 lacs for Hindustan Times.

In an IRS presentation, three factors have combined to bring about this change. Decline in Readers Per Copy due to a fall in cover price, a drop in 'duplicate readership' between Time of India and Hindustan Times and increase in 'sole readers'. We will shortly run a detailed analysis focusing on this movement.

However, Hindustan Times is not convinced. Immediately after Times of India ran a front page story on Survey, Hindustan Times reacted writing, "Hindustan Times remains leader: Here's why." Citing ABC and NRS figures, it argued that every other statistics confirmed that Hindustan Times is the leader. Refer chart 4:

Chart 4: Hindustan Times defends

	IRS		NRS	ABC
	Round 9	Round 8	2002	Jan- June 2002	Jan- Dec 2001
Times of India	11,30,000	10,70,000	10,23,000	NA	8,79,617
Hindustan Times	9,60,000	11,10,000	12,57,000	9,55,152	9,20,492

With the news survey data out, while many will rejoice, others will go back to the drawing board and carve new strategies. We'll keep you posted with more incisive analysis. Coming Soon…

About IRS Round 9 - 2002 Round 1
The period of fieldwork was taken from 19th November 2001 to 19th April 2002 but to achieve the targeted sample size in troubled Gujarat fieldwork was extended to May 2002. The sample size of the survey is 1,14,944 households (Urban+Rural). Survey covered 687 towns (>< than 1,00,000 population town) and 14332 villages and covered 40 cities (>5 lacs population) and 23 states including new states like Jharkhand, Chatisgarh and Utranchal.