Can MRUCI bring back IRS — and, more importantly, restore industry trust?

The appointment of Kaacon Sethi as CEO of the Media Research Users Council India (MRUCI) comes at an interesting moment. The Indian Readership Survey (IRS), the industry's established readership currency, has not been conducted since 2019. Sethi takes charge on October 8, 2026, as MRUCI works towards reviving the survey.

But bringing the IRS back is only the first challenge. The bigger question is whether the new survey can regain the credibility and acceptance it once enjoyed.

Seven years is a long time in media

A lot has changed since the last IRS. The Indian consumer has moved further into a multi-screen, multi-platform environment. Print continues to have its audience, but the same consumer may now consume news through a newspaper, website, app, social media feed and video platform during the course of a day.

That makes the next IRS fundamentally different from simply updating an old readership study. It has to reflect the media landscape of today, not the media landscape of 2019.

MRUCI has indicated that the revived IRS will have an enhanced study design and refined methodology, with a broader approach to measuring media quality and impact.

Planning did not stop

The absence of IRS data has not meant that print advertising stopped being planned.

Media agencies and advertisers have continued to plan print campaigns using a combination of historical readership data, audited circulation, publisher information, market knowledge and other research inputs. In fact, the industry has adapted to the absence of a common current readership currency.

This raises an important question: how much difference will the new IRS actually make?

For large publishers with strong brands and substantial circulation, the return of IRS may provide another layer of independent validation. For smaller publications and markets, an independently generated readership number could potentially provide a more comparable basis on which to demonstrate audience strength.

But it would be unrealistic to assume that the industry will immediately discard the systems it has developed during the gap.

The credibility quotient

The new IRS will therefore have to earn its credibility.

The industry has already waited several years, and the revival has itself taken time. The proposed pilot has faced discussions around methodology, questionnaire design and field execution, with publishers raising concerns about aspects of the proposed framework.

That may not necessarily be a bad thing. A research currency used by advertisers, agencies and publishers should be subjected to scrutiny before it is released.

The important thing is that the final methodology must be robust, transparent and capable of being understood by all stakeholders.

MRUCI already has several safeguards in its established IRS methodology, including multi-stage stratified random sampling, CAPI-based interviews, GPS tracking, electronic address forms, field back-checks and third-party auditing.

The new IRS will need to build on that foundation while addressing the realities of today's media consumption.

There will be a gestation period

One should also not expect the new IRS to become an overnight industry currency.

A study of this scale needs time for methodology, pilot testing, fieldwork, validation, analysis and stakeholder review. The existing IRS itself has historically involved a large national sample and extensive fieldwork. MRUCI's published methodology notes that the normal minimum fieldwork period for the survey has been 12 months.

So even after the methodology is finalised, there will inevitably be a gestation period before the industry gets comfortable with the new numbers.

And that period may be particularly important because the new data will have to be compared with a 2019 benchmark that is now several years old.

A new media reality needs new measurement

The bigger opportunity for MRUCI is to rethink what a readership currency should mean.

The old question was largely about reach: how many people read a publication?

The new media environment demands more. How does the audience consume content? Across which platforms? How frequently? What level of attention does it command? And, increasingly, what is the relationship between reach, trust and engagement?

MRUCI has indicated that the new framework is intended to look beyond traditional readership measurement and address media quality and impact.

That is potentially important because advertisers today are looking beyond simple audience numbers. They want evidence that can help them make better investment decisions.

The real test will be acceptance

Ultimately, the success of the new IRS will not be determined simply by the size of its sample or the sophistication of its technology.

It will be determined by whether advertisers, agencies and publishers are willing to accept the numbers as a common reference point.

That will require transparency about the methodology, clarity about how the data is collected, consistency in measurement and openness about its limitations.

MRUCI's own history shows that IRS has evolved over the years, with larger samples, newer technology and additional quality controls introduced as the media environment changed.

The next evolution therefore has to be more than a revival.

Can it become the currency again?

The return of the IRS will certainly fill a research gap. But the industry has already demonstrated that it can plan print without a current IRS.

So the question is not whether media planning can survive without it. It has.

The real question is whether a new, robust and transparent IRS can provide something the industry has been missing: a common, independent and credible language for understanding audiences.

Seven years have changed Indian media dramatically. The new IRS will have to acknowledge that change rather than simply measure it.

MRUCI can bring the IRS back. But its bigger task will be to make the industry believe that this is not just the IRS returning — it is a new readership currency being built for a new media India.