IRS Q3 2011: Top 10 Hindi Dailies

Dainik Bhaskar records maximum growth; Dainik Jagran, Hindustan, Prabhat Khabar & Patrika too add more readers

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | December 22, 2011

The third quarter results of IRS 2011 indicate overall growth for the top 10 vernacular dailies. Five out of the top 10 Hindi dailies have seen growth, with Dainik Bhaskar adding 5 per cent readers to its AIR. The daily added 7.02 lakh readers this quarter.

India's largest read Hindi daily, Dainik Jagran, has further strengthened its position by adding 65,000 readers in IRS Q3 2011. It had added 4.83 lakh readers in the 2nd quarter of IRS 2011. Its current AIR stands at 1,64,58,000 compared to 1,63,93,000 in the previous quarter.

At second spot, Dainik Bhaskar has registered an exceptional growth in its AIR in the third quarter of IRS 2011. Riding on new edition launches, the paper has added 7.02 lakh readers against an addition of 1.58 lakh readers in the second quarter of IRS 2011. Its AIR now stands at 1,48,76,000 compared to 1,41,74,000 in IRS Q2 2011. Bhaskar had added 25,000 readers to its AIR in IRS Q1 2011.

The growth in AIR of Hindustan has again slowed down this quarter. It has added 48,000 readers to take its AIR at 1,20,33,000 in IRS Q3 2011 against 1,19,85,000 in IRS Q2 2011. Hindustan had added 1.75 lakh readers in IRS Q2 2011, 3.58 lakh readers in IRS Q1 2011 and 6.13 lakh readers in the last quarter of IRS 2010.

The fourth largest Hindi daily, Amar Ujala, has seen a marginal decline in its AIR in Q3, recording 88.36 lakh in IRS Q3 2011 compared to 88.91 lakh in IRS Q2 2011. The daily had added 1.44 lakh readers in IRS Q2 2011 and 1.07 lakh readers in IRS Q1 2011.

Rajasthan Patrika has continued losing readership over the last four quarters. The daily has again lost 23,000 readers and recorded an AIR of 69.18 lakh compared to 69.41 lakh in the previous quarter. It had lost 92,000 readers in IRS Q2 2011.

The No. 6 Hindi daily, Punjab Kesri, too registered a decline for the third consecutive quarter. By losing 88,000 readers, its current AIR stands at 33.26 lakh against 34.14 lakh in the previous quarter. The daily had lost 65,000 in the second quarter and 80,000 readers in the first quarter of IRS 2011.

Navbharat Times has not been able to maintain its growth trend and lost 69,000 readers this quarter. Its AIR now stands at 25.81 lakh compared to 26.5 lakh in IRS Q2 2011. NBT had added 61,000 readers in its AIR in IRS Q2 2011; 10,000 readers in IRS Q1 2011; and 47,000 readers in Q4 2010.

Jharkhand's leading Hindi daily Prabhat Khabar has strengthened its position at No. 8 by adding 1.7 lakh readers in this round. Its current AIR stands at 20.63 lakh compared to 18.93 lakh in IRS Q 2011. The daily had added 81,000 readers in Q2 2011 and 1,33,000 readers in Q1 2011.

Nai Dunia has registered an AIR of 16.30 lakh in IRS Q3 2011 compared to 17.14 lakh in IRS Q2 2011. The daily had lost 48,000 readers in second quarter of IRS 2011.

Patrika has entered the top 10 list with 14.3 lakh of AIR in IRS Q3 2011. The daily had 12.51 lakh readers in IRS Q2 2011.

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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 even calculate and compare cost-benefits of dailies based on the AIR figure. Hence, it is perhaps the most relevant to study readership trends as well in terms of AIR.

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