IRS Q2 2011: Top 10 dailies in Karnataka

Among the top 10 dailies, only Tarun Bharat has shown a decline

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | October 5, 2011

Karnataka's top newspapers have shown robust growth in the past one year; however, five out of the top 10 dailies in the state have seen a marginal decline over the last quarter. Among the top 10 dailies, only Tarun Bharat has shown a decline.

No.1 Kannada daily Vijay Karnataka has not been able to hold on to its readers and lost a few in the second quarter of IRS 2011. It has recorded an AIR of 34.38 lakh compared with 34.7 lakh in the previous quarter and 32.68 lakh in IRS Q2 2010. Overall, Vijay Karnataka has grown by 5.2 per cent over the past one year.

The second largest read daily in the state, Prajavani, has grown by 31 per cent in a year but has lost 1 per cent readers in IRS Q2 2011. The daily has an AIR of 33.69 lakh compared with 34.03 lakh in the previous quarter and 25.65 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

At No.3, Kannada Prabha is also growing rapidly. While the paper has grown by 1.5 per cent over the previous quarter, it has added more than 57 per cent readers since the second quarter survey last year. The AIR of Kannada Prabha stands at 13.54 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 against 13.34 lakh in the previous survey and 8.62 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

Samyukta Karnataka has not been able to hold its readers this quarter and it has seen a dip of 10 per cent in IRS Q2 2011. However, the overall growth during the year has been 19.5 per cent for the No.4 daily of the state. Its current AIR stands at 11.76 lakh compared with 13.06 lakh in the last quarter and 9.84 lakh in IRS Q2 2011.

Udayavani has recovered last quarter's losses in Q2 2011, adding 10.3 per cent to its readership to take its AIR to 9.85 lakh against 8.93 lakh in the previous quarter and 7.94 lakh in IRS Q2 2010. Thus, the daily has registered an overall growth of 24 per cent over the past one year.

The Times of India is also growing steadily in the state and recorded an AIR of 5.75 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 compared with 5.35 lakh in the previous quarter and 4.45 lakh in IRS Q2 2010. The Englsih daily has added 29.2 per cent new readers during the last year.

At No.7, Deccan Herald has lost a few readers in IRS Q2 2011 but grown by 31.8 per cent in a year. The daily had grown by 10.7 per cent in readership in the last survey. It has recorded an AIR of 4.14 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 against 4.23 lakh in the last quarter and 3.14 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

Sanjavani has held on to its No.8 position. The daily has an AIR of 2.15 lakh in IRS Q2 2011 compared with 2.07 lakh in the previous quarter and 2.11 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

The 9^th spot was taken by Bangalore Mirror in the previous quarter and the paper is growing strongly. It has grown by 150 per cent since IRS Q2 2010. Its current AIR stands at 1.75 lakh against 1.60 lakh in the previous quarter.

Tarun Bharat remains at the last position in the list of top 10 as the declining trend for the paper continued in this quarter too. It is the only paper in the state to lose readers over the second quarter of last year. Its current AIR stands at 1.45 lakh against 1.60  lakh in the previous quarter and 2.27 lakh in IRS Q2 2010.

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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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