As experts often put it, the National Readership Study 2005 (NRS 2005) is anything but only a readership survey. In the process of measuring, who reads what in India, the survey has given the advertiser and media industry a much closer look at their changing consumer and the growth in all the other mediums.
Some of the most interesting findings of NRS 2005 have come with regards to the television medium. The study indicates that television now reaches 108 million Indian homes, which means a first ever jump from the 50 per cent mark of all homes, reflecting a 32 per cent growth.
The growth is Cable and Satellite (C&S) penetration is more than twice the growth in TV owning homes. These homes have registered a 53 per cent growth jumping up from the 40 million in 2002 to 61 million in 2005. C&S subscription itself has penetrated 56 per cent of all TV homes.
In terms of reach, from the average 134 million individuals a week watching TV in 2002, the number is at a 190 million individuals in 2005. For broadcasters, what is further good news is the fact that the only thing outshining the C&S growth is colour TV penetration. Homes with colour TV have doubled leading to 70 per cent C&S homes owning colour TV sets today. Interestingly, TV & satellite dominate southern markets like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh Continued from page 1
and Karnataka, which boast of some of the highest TV reach and C&S penetration.
Another noteworthy aspect of the findings is in regards to Internet. NRS 2005 states that of the 11 million 12 + individuals, who accessed Internet in the last three months, 8 million were from urban India and 3 mn from rural. In addition to that, only 16 per cent of these users access Internet from workplace, 34 per cent surf from home and 32 per cent go to cyber cafes.
For the radio medium, however, the news is not so good. On the whole, radio has been stagnant but urban India does see an increase in FM users, which in comparison to 2002, is quite significant at a 100 per cent.
Another medium, which has finally gained recognition, is the mobile phone. The study shows that 13.9 per cent of mobile phone users avail to value added features like SMS, downloads and accessing news amongst other.
In all, needless to say, the knight in shining armour is satellite television, the existence of which is always seen as a menace to the print medium. However, the trend from NRS 2005 shows newspapers yet don’t have much to worry. In the last three years, if any thing, the reach of press has increased from 179 million to 200 million. The medium continues to grow, adding 21 million readers between 2002 and 2005, where in there are nearly as many as urban readers (101 million), as there are rural (98 million) ones.
The time spent on the press medium itself has increased over the years. Today, the average urban adult spends 42 minutes per day reading dailies and magazines and 1 hour 42 minutes watching TV. Three years back, the average reading time was 32 minutes and the average viewing time was 1 hour 40 minutes. This in effect means that press has increased its share of the day at the expense of TV — it accounts 30 per cent of the time spent, up from 24 per cent three years ago.
What cannot be missed in this entire deal is that newspapers have driven the growth in the readership base. The dailies reader base increased from 155 million in 2002 to 176 million. A key reason can be associated with the fact that NRS 2005 has also recorded a literacy growth, despite the stringent literacy definition of the ability to read and understand any language. Literacy has risen from 62.5 per cent to 70.6 per cent, growth coming more from rural areas than urban areas.
However, even if newspapers have reasons to celebrate, NRS 2005 clearly shows that it is about time magazines began thinking out of the box. The medium on the whole is seeing a decline, with the exception of magazines from the India Today group, Newsweek and so on. Much of the overall fall can be attributed to not just the satellite growth but also the fact that newspapers are increasingly serving the purpose of magazines with the supplements and other such add-ons for the readers.
To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated June 13-19, 2005
