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Hindi daily Dainik Jagran continued to top the list in media readership, as measured in the Indian Readership Survey 2013 (IRS 2013), despite the change in method for conducting it.
The only other publication to retain its position was Malayala Manorama at number four. While the composition of the top 10 publications didn’t change, the other eight saw shuffling in the pecking order (see table).
To make IRS 2013 more accurate, the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and research agency Nielsen made some changes in the method. The aim was enhanced data quality through modern technology. The data collection also made use of the Dual Screen Computer Assisted Personal Interview (DS CAPI). In this, two screens (tablets or laptop) are used — the active one where the interviewer enters the responses and the passive screen, kept in front of the subject to read and understand the question. Both are connected by a cable. This tool has been employed to reduce non-sampling errors (errors not a function of the sample chosen for research). The use of DS CAPI also allowed for real-time workforce tracking, which helped keep a check on the interviews as they happened in the the field.
One of the most important changes is inclusion of data fusion. Through this, combined with use of DS CAPI, surveyors were able to reduce the time per interview from 90 minutes to 30 minutes. Data fusion is the process of integration of multiple data and knowledge representing the same real-world object into a consistent, accurate, and useful representation. “With the duration of the interview coming down, interviewee and interviewer fatigue also reduced, increasing the efficiency of data collection,” says Paritosh Joshi, on the technical committee involved.
Another significant change is the periodicity of media consumption considered. Until now, the respondents had to answer if they had ever consumed a particular media vehicle. Now, the time period under consideration is a month for print, television and radio consumption, six months for cinema and a year for internet consumption. This provides for more accuracy in the data collection, since the time frame is better defined and reduces the margin for error.
For print publications, readership would no longer be reported by editions, to ensure publications are reported in similar regions and, hence, are comparable. Also, this year, only average issue readership was used as a measure.
IRS 2013 was conducted by MRUC, which commissioned global research agency Nielsen to do the survey. This is the first year Nielsen did so. Till 2012, the commissioned agency was Hansa Research.
The sample size covered in IRS 2013 is about 235,000 households. The sample was spread across urban India (nearly 160,000 households) and rural India (nearly 75,000). The census of 2011 has been used for the universe projection.
