The topline findings for IRS 2009 R1 have been released. Sanchayeeta Verma, Partner, business planning, Mindshare analyses the trends for Campaign India.
* Trend of drop in readership of magazines as seen in the past few years continues unabated.
* Hindi and vernacular dailies also either stagnant or dropping in readership. English publications however showing growth mainly on the back of market expansion
* The Economic Times shows a reverse trend - it has grown by 5% in the last year, whereas in 2008 (vs 2007) it had actually de-grown by 4% - economic downturn fuelling higher business content readership.
* Publication rankings.
- Hindi dailies remain constant over the past three years, with the exception of Hari Bhoomi which moves into the top 10 fold
- English daily rankings remain the same … with the exception of Tribune which had lost readership in 2008, but has regained lost ground.
- Lokmat is the notable gainer in rankings in the vernacular dailies space (though more because of the de-growth of others, whilst managing to hold on to its own readership). Significant drop for Eenadu.
- Hindi magazines show a lot more churn… all magazines have de-grown, the magazine for competitive exams have de-grown the least, and up by two rungs - students continuing to refer to it.
-English magazines have suffered the largest loss in readership. But there is an upsurge in the 'competitive magazine' segment, looking at the new entrant in Top 10, Competition Refresher, one of the few magazines in the top 10 space showing a growth in readership.
- Another observation in English magazines is the drop in Film magazines - the highest across all publications.
* The high literacy of Kerala continues to set it apart from the rest of India - almost all Malayalam publications (dailies and magazines) have shown a growth in readership.
* Need to keep an eye on women’s magazines - showing high de-growth trends across languages.
Top 10 Hindi Dailies
Top 10 Hindi Magazines
Top 10 English Dailies
Top 10 English Magazines
Top 10 Language Dailies
Top 10 Language Magazines
