Newspaper society may take on IRS

Disappointed by the findings of the Indian Readership Survey, the Indian Newspaper Society, a nodal body of all print publications, may launch its own readership survey at a cost of Rs 7-8 crore within the next four months.

Last year, the INS had threatened to walk out of the National Readership Survey conducted by the National Studies Research Council. The grievances were more or less the same -- in an era of growing population, literacy level and circulation of print publications, these surveys show declining readership.

Now, INS has mooted a proposal to set up an independent research body that will only look at the readership of newspapers and magazines, unlike the IRS or NRS that also looks at the viewership of television channels, the time spent, demographics and psychographics and other parameters.

"Today, along with population growth, literacy is growing too. Also, the circulation of all print publications has gone up compared to last year. In such a scenario, understanding the findings of the IRS are difficult; so we may go in for our own survey," Paresh Nath, vice-president, INS, and editor and publisher, Delhi Press, told Business Standard.

This may mean that the money being spent by INS members on both IRS and NRS is diverted to the proposed new body which will conduct the readership survey.

In its latest report, the IRS survey shows a decline in readership for all newspapers, magazines and periodicals, a fact that has not gone down well with INS, which has over 990 dailies, periodicals, magazines, and bi-dailies as its members.

The IRS survey is conducted twice a year by Media Research Users Council with funding from media owners and advertisers.

"Even the Audit Bureau of Circulations tells us that the circulation of most print publications has increased; therefore, we cannot understand how the readership of all print publications can decline," Nath said.

ABC is a not-for-profit voluntary organisation that audits the circulation of member newspapers.

The IRS survey released on March 21 says the readership of publications across the country declined by 4.5 per cent to 17.1 crore in the last six months of 2006, in comparison with the first six months.