Can newspaper readership be lower than circulation?

Can newspaper readership be lower than circulation? ?Technically yes,? says Media Research Users Council (MRUC). ?No?, according to Nai Dunia.

Nai Dunia, a leading Hindi daily of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and MRUC are headed for a legal battle over the first-round results of Indian Readership Survey, 2008. According to Anil Dhupar, president, (marketing), Nai Dunia, the newspaper is set to take MRUC to high court if the establishment doesn’t receive satisfactory explanation to its legal notice sent out last week. ?We have three major concerns-IRS?s readership figures in select cities is lower than the circulation of the newspaper. For instance, in Jabalpur, where we launched in September 2007 our circulation is 70,000, how can our readership be reduced to 14,000? Our Raipur edition, launched two years back has second largest circulation in the city, but doesn’t find any mention in IRS. In case of Indore, even while the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) has registered an increase in circulation, IRS data doesn’t reflect that,? said Dhupar.

He further said that transparency is required on how data of multiple editions are clubbed and one city’s readership is reflected in another city. ?We are ready take MRUC to high court if it doesn’t come about with a satisfactory reply to our legal notice. Last year when we had raised similar objections and reported irregularities, we didn’t even receive a reply,? complained Dhupar.

However, according to MRUC, it has sent a three-page reply answering the previous queries of Nai Dunia. Sabina Solomon, general manager, MRUC told FE, ?We get many such queries and answer them religiously, only in this particular case it is in form of a legal notice. We are yet to cull out the details of this particular case, but technically it is possible that the readership is less than circulation depending on the composition of circulation. We don’t take into account population on move, say students and travelers. Secondly, over the last five years the trend of more joint families breaking into nuclear families and invasion of television has resulted in people subscribing to multiple newspapers but not reading many of them.

So while earlier, one newspaper could mean a readership of four, in some cases the same has dropped to one newspaper converting into a readership of one as the women and children of the family may not be reading the paper at all?.

Regarding the clarity on clubbing of multiple editions as one, Solomon said, ?Depending on which time of the year the edition is launched, whether the locations in question are geographically contiguous and can be clubbed for the sake of statistical stability, we decide on the merger of editions?. IRS data assumes significance as it is referred to by media planners and advertisers to determine the cost of an adspace and affects the business of newspapers.

Earlier, in a press release, MRUC had revealed that the research conducted for IRS 2008 Round one in Rajasthan had irregularities delayed the release the data by a month.

Hansa Research, the agency which undertakes the fieldwork for IRS, reported to MRUC that some publications were trying to influence the results in some markets.