The High Court of Madhya Pradesh bench at Indore on August 22, 2008, admitted a writ petition by NaiDunia Media challenging the Indian Readership Survey (IRS), 2008 R1 report and has issued notices to the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and others.
Following the release of IRS 2008 Round 1 survey report, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh based Hindi daily NaiDunia has issued a legal notice to Media Research Users Council (MRUC) that conducts this survey, challenging the findings of the survey. MRUC is yet to revert on this notice.
Low readership figures continue to haunt the magazines genre. Not just the English magazines, vernacular magazines too suffered a decline. The only ones that have managed to register some growth are Tamil fortnightlies (7 per cent) and monthlies (26 per cent) as well as Oriya weeklies (47 per cent).
The story is not too happy for English business publications either in the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008 Round 1. Most players have registered a decline in readership, as was seen in the previous rounds of IRS. There are no surprises in the order – the Economic Times maintains its lead among the pink dailies, while Business Today is the leader among business magazines.
The Times of India has retained its leadership position in both Delhi and Mumbai according to the Round 1 of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008. An interesting point here is that the readership of key publications in Delhi has seen a clear decline unlike in Mumbai, where players have managed to hold on to their readers.
According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008 Round 1, the magazine genre is dominated by Hindi and other vernacular publications, with India Today being the only English magazine to make it to the top 10 list. Hindi fortnightly Saras Salil is the leader among magazines with a total readership of 98 lakh.
The Round 1 of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008 shows that the language wise leaders in the total readership parameter have kept a grip on their positions, though some have registered marginal declines. Ananda Bazar Patrika, Gujarat Samachar, Vijay Karnataka, Malayala Manorama, Lokmat, Daily Thanthi and Eenadu lead in their respective languages.
The Media Research Users’ Council has released the data for IRS 2008 Round 1. There aren’t any surprises in the numbers this time as well. The top 10 Hindi dailies see Dainik Jagran topping the charts again with a readership of 566 lakh. The Times of India leads the top 10 English dailies list with a total readership of 136 lakh.