IRS '11Q2 results: Looking at the Fine Print

A week ago MRUC (Media Research Users Council) reported results from its recent surveys of print media readership conducted across the nation. Statistics relevant to Karnataka reveal pleasing results with every other newspaper gaining readers on top of their base from previous year. This news clears the table and lays data afresh, portraying once again how printed content in Kannada still continues to top and lead readership charts across the state, with urban hotspots like Bengaluru being no exception.


A question of capability and choice
The IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is, according to an official release :

.. a syndicated study based on a comprehensive sample size of 2,14,486 with a geographic spread of nearly 70 cities, 1178 towns & 2894 villages...The random sample size is distributed across all metro towns, rest of urban & rural using an appropriate method that ensures adequate sample representation across all the population strata.

Apart from being a good manifestation of a people's literacy ratio, IRS data are also a good 'currency' for advertisers and media houses to trade with. These data provide statistical reassurances about the market reach of newspapers - something that media and ad agencies expect to obtain by partnering with the print media players in the form of advertisements and sometimes (paid) news! In effect these results are much awaited by benefactors in business & media houses alike. While business houses interpret this data to measure the capability of print media to reach their market audiences, media houses use this data as currency in exchange for a proportional amount of advertising investment by business houses.


There, but not yet?
Evidently, the Kannada print media has come out in flying colors in every successive IRS survey in the last 6-8 quarters, displaying fierce competition among its leading players, each inching further towards a higher readership QoQ (Quarter on Quarter). The following leader-board illustrates this competition, making evident the battle for the top two spots thereby emphasizing on the value of playing in the Kannada print media market. 

Kannada Print Media Leader Board (10Q1-11Q2)

This may be news to cheer, but statistics underlying them expose the relatively meager coverage of Kannada literates (& Karnataka population in general) compared to their other South Indian counterparts. 


Since literacy of a state directly dictates its limit of print media penetration, the same reflects in the maximum AIR (Average Issue Readership) numbers one can expect to see in each state. Kerala with the highest literacy among South Indian states tops the charts, both in terms of literacy and AIR whereas Karnataka with a literacy better than Andhra still fails to beat it in terms of AIR. This is not an exception we can ignore, for it indicates how poorly Kannada print media has been able to tap the literate Kannadiga population and also various other people that can read and understand the Kannada script. The following chart summarizes this trend.

AIR vs Literacy trend

While literacy agreeably plays a critical role in defining the market size, traits of a print medium such as: 

• content quality, 
• readership loyalty, 
• distribution efficiency, 
• localized rendering of content, 
• emphasis on local language usage, 
• ability to customize content and render it more appealing to local audiences 

Reach Comparison (%)

- appear to be influencing a newspaper's patronage. Kannada print media has miles to go and work to do to improve their patronage on the lines of what its neighboring language presses have achieved. This chart exhibits (in percentages) how a majority of print media in South India, especially the Kannada version have stayed below the average both in terms of net AIR and net literate AIR. (The red dotted lines represent averages.) While it may not be able to do much that can directly bump up Karnataka's literacy, the Kannada press certainly needs to strengthen its focus on education in Kannada medium and emphasize on the importance of increasing the usage of Kannada in every walk of life in Karnataka. Even a small example cited in this regard points fingers at a Kannada daily which writes reams about the importance of Hindi for Kannadigas, or another which does nothing to educate advertisers to not field English advertisement in a Kannada daily. The Kannada press isn't doing enough to help broaden the Kannada reader base! What is observed today instead is that quite a few Kannada press members have, unconsciously or otherwise, become glorifiers of the success stories in other languages thereby sidelining what is being done and what needs to be done to empower Kannada to reach the same stage for Kannadigas.


Contrasting 'under the lamp' observations
The Kannada press has certainly got some reason to celebrate, especially keeping in mind the fact that repeated IRS results from Karnataka and Bengaluru have revealed Kannada dailies as leaders in terms of AIR year-on-year, reinforcing the truth about how deep Kannada alone penetrates into this society. In this backdrop wild & wrong assumptions and misplaced fears like Kannada losing prominence continue to be expressed by concerned authorities like the head of Kannada Abhivruddhi Praadhikara. All these surveys and their results - confirming that more than 17 out of 20 Benglurians listening in public (FM, for instance), talking in public (FM, again), and reading papers are plugged in to Kannada - seem to be falling on closed eyes of responsible people. Is it time for them to wake up yet?


PS: One fairly reasonable assumption made in the calculations here is no overlap of readers of two newspapers, thereby making the AIRs of two newspapers linearly additive in nature.