IRS Q4 2010: Top English Dailies in Delhi

All major English dailies have shown growth in their Average Issue Readership numbers in IRS Q4 2010.

Rajat Arora | Delhi | March 15, 2011

Delhi market has shown good growth in the fourth quarter of IRS 2010. All major English dailies have shown growth in their Average Issue Readership numbers.

'Hindustan Times' still remains the most preferred choice of Delhizens. HT has gained 6,000 readers in the Q4 of IRS 2010 and its Average issue readership stands at 19.20 lakh. In Q3, 2010 HT had lost 47,000 readers and its readership had fallen to 19.14 lakh from 19.61 lakh. In Q2 of IRS 2010, HT had lost 51,000 readers. Overall, the largest read English daily of the capital has seen a decline of 4.6% in its readership this year.

Nation's No.1 English daily 'The Times of India' has consolidated its position as No.2 choice of the capital. TOI has gained 39,000 readers in the current quarter and its AIR stands at 18.95 lakh. TOI had lost 29,000 readers in Q3 and 63,000 readers in Q2. Thus the readership of TOI also has dipped by 2.7% over the year.

Compact English daily 'Mail Today' has also got 7,000 readers on board in the current IRS. Mail Today enjoys AIR of 2.08 lakh. In Q3 Mail Today lost 2,000 readers and its readership had fallen to 2.01 lakh from 2.03 lakh of Q2. The compact daily had added 16,000 readers in IRS Q1 2010. Overall, the daily has grown by 11.2% over the year to consolidate its position at No.3.

Business daily 'Economic Times' has also shown improvement in its readership figures. ET has gained 3,000 readers in the current quarter and its AIR stands at 1.85 lakh. In Q3 ET lost 4,000 readers and its readership had fallen to 1.82 lakh from 1.86 lakh in Q2 of IRS 2010.

The Hindu has also faired well in Delhi region. The English daily has gained 5,000 readers in the current quarter. Its AIR has risen to 1.12 lakh in the current quarter from 1.07 lakh in Q3. In last quarter also The Hindu gained 5,000 readers.

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About methodology

Average Issue Readership (AIR) of a publication is defined as the number of readers of that publication who have claimed to have last read it within its periodicity – i.e. last read a daily yesterday, a weekly within the last week, a monthly within the last month, etc.

This measure is considered to be a more relevant measure of 'real' or 'regular' readership, especially for newspapers, most of which have been read / 'consumed' as matter of daily habit. Conventionally, media planners even calculate & compare cost-benefits of dailies based on the AIR figure. And hence it is perhaps most relevant to study readership trends as well in terms of AIR.

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