Readership of dailies up, magazines hit

Dainik Jagran has topped a list of 10 leading publications, retaining its position with a readership of 1,91,74,000 in the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2005, round 2 (R2), conducted by Media Research Users' Council (MRUC) and Hansa Research Group.

In the second position was Dainik Bhaskar with 1,50,92,000, followed by Daily Thanti, Amar Ujala, Malyalam Manorama, Hindustan, Lokmat, Eenadu, Mathrubhumi and Saras Salil.

Both Malyalam Manorama and Saras Salil were the only magazines to feature in the top 10 publications list with a readership of 94,26,000 and 73,66,000, respectively. The results of the survey were announced today. Overall, all publications witnessed a rise of three per cent in readership.

"While the daily readership has gone up, the weeklies saw a drop, but the most hit were fortnightlies with a drastic drop of almost eight per cent. "However, monthlies maintained status quo," said Sudarshan Vishwanathan of Hansa Research Group, marketing and client servicing, syndicated products, Hansa Research Group.

While colour television (CTV) penetration increased by over 20 per cent, the number of cable and satellite (C&S) homes increased by 14.6 per cent. The increase in CTV ownership is not commensurate with the C&S penetration.

This means that C&S households are possibly selling their black and white TV sets and purchasing CTVs, or people already owning a CTV may be upgrading to a better model. The number of C&S households has increased by 6.3 per cent in urban areas, while rural areas have witnessed a jump of 23.3 per cent.

Among the language newspapers, the readership of Tamil publications is up by 9.5 per cent, Marathi by 7.4 per cent and Telugu by 6.3 per cent. The Malyalam readership is down by 8.7 per cent despite Kerala being the most literate state in the country.

Another interesting trend that has been seen, is that the upper segments "" SEC A and SEC AB have seen a fall in readership. "This fall is due to the decline in readership of the weeklies and fornightlies," added Viswanathan.

While the weeklies have fallen by 8.8 per cent, fornightlies have done 10.7 per cent. SEC A and SEC AB segments denote the upper class of society with a high education and income level. In the top 10 magazines category, Saras Salil stood at number one with 73,66,000, followed by Vanitha at 93,35,000.