Following a meeting of its board of governors today, the MRUC (Media Research User’s Council) has issued a statement underlining that it stands by the Indian Readership Survey 2013, findings of which were announced on 28 January 2014.
The findings met with staunch opposition from a group of publishers, leading to a meeting between the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and MRUC on 3 January 2014. Post this meeting, the MRUC had called for its board to meet.
Post this meeting, MRUC issued the following statement: “The Council asserts that the design, methodology and in-field execution of the study was benchmarked to and conducted at the very highest standards. The massive integration of technology, from DS-CAPI, through automated collation and tabulation, to a brand new UI (user interface) with a comprehensive suite of on-board analytics played a crucial role in this exercise. The Council intended to deliver a study that could legitimately carry the ‘Gold Standard’ appellation. It is satisfied that the study has moved many steps forward in that direction.”
The group of publishers contesting the findings of the survey had urged advertisers and agencies to not use the findings in a joint statement (link to story below).
The MRUC statement added, “The Council is conscious that it is now only one of the two constituents of the Readership Studies Council of India. With the RSCI now being in charge of governance of the study, the MRUC is no longer at liberty to make a unilateral determination of the way forward, particularly in a situation as contentious as it appears today.”
It said that an RSCI meeting called by its chairman on 19 February 2014 will determine the way forward. “All aspects of the study will be placed before the RSCI for helping the broader community of stakeholders convince themselves about the study’s robustness and integrity,” informed the statement from MRUC.
