IRS Q2 2011: Top 10 dailies in Bihar

All the top 10 dailies witness growth in the state; Prabhat Khabar grows by about 27% in this quarter

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | October 3, 2011

The second quarter results of IRS 2011 have given all the top 10 newspapers of Bihar a reason to cheer. Where Prabhat Khabar, Rashtriya Sahara and The Hindu have grown by more than 20% in this quarter, other dailies have managed to add a few readers over the last quarter's survey.

Hindi daily 'Hindustan' remains the distant leader in Bihar and still counting. By adding 2.4% more readers over the last quarter, the daily has recorded an AIR of 48.42 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 as compared to 47.29 lakh in the previous quarter. The daily has registered a growth of 11.2% over the year. It had an AIR of 43.56 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

World's largest read daily Dainik Jagran is the second largest read newspaper of Bihar with an Average Issue Readership of 27.27 lakh as compared to 25.68 lakh in the previous quarter. The daily has grown by 6.2% during the quarter while it has registered an overall growth of 2.6% over the year. The daily had an AIR of 26.58 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

Prabhat Khabar has been consistent with its growth in the state and has been able to manage a growth rate of around 20% for past few rounds of survey. In IRS Q2 2011, the daily has grown by 26.8% and recorded an AIR of 4.26 lakh as compared to 3.36 lakh in the previous quarter and 2.31 lakh in the second quarter of last year. Thus, the daily has registered a growth of 84.4% over past one year.

No.4 Hindi daily 'Aj' has also registered a marginal growth and added 17,000 readers over the last quarter. The newspaper has recorded an AIR of 2.86 lakh as compared to 2.69 lakh in previous quarter. The daily has grown by 19.2% as compared to the same period in last year.

At No.5 in Bihar is English daily 'The Times of India' which has recorded an AIR of 1.62 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 as compared to 1.51 lakh in last survey. The English daily has seen no change in the readership over the past one year in the state.

Recovering its losses in the second quarter of IRS 2011, 'Rashtriya Sahara' has strengthened its No.6 position in the state. The daily has an AIR of 1.19 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 as compared to 98,000 in the previous quarter. The daily has 1.19 lakh readers in IRS Q2 2010.

I Next' has been able to hold its readership over the last quarter results and added 1000 readers to take its AIR at 92,000 in IRS Q2 2011. The daily had an AIR of 1.34 lakh in IRS Q2 2010. Thus the daily has recorded an overall loss of 31.3% during last one year.

Hindustan Times has shown some recovery in this round of survey and added 4,000 readers in its average issue readership to take it at 88,000 as compared to 84,000 in the previous quarter. The paper had an AIR of 85,000 in the second quarter of last year.

'The Hindu' and 'The Economic Times' are on 9^th and 10^th spot with AIR of 30,000 and 19,000 respectively. The Hindu has grown by 30.4% over last quarter results while it has registered 100% growth over the year. At the other hand ET has recorded 216% of growth over the past one year.

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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 a matter of daily habit. Conventionally, media planners calculate and compare cost-benefits of dailies based on the AIR figure. Hence, it is perhaps most relevant to study readership trends in terms of AIR.

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