Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? After a drinking bout, he falls asleep for twenty long years missing the American War of Independence only to wake up to find himself in a changed world. Unfortunately, this is the predicament most media researchers in India find themselves in. Caught in a time warp, they have been spending hundreds of crores of rupees on studying the effectiveness of traditional media while India has moved on to a time where brands and media companies tango effortlessly and speak through a kaleidoscope of gadgets.
The new-age consumer?s world is a fluid one. Radio, television, digital media, print, social networks, mobile?all intertwine and become one. For instance, a report in a newspaper may be read online, downloaded on the mobile, followed on Twitter or commented upon on Facebook, besides being read the old-fashioned way. In fact, a key responsibility of the Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI) ? formed last year after the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) joined hands with the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) ? is to conduct a joint readership survey that captures contemporary readership habits and make it relevant for the new-age media platforms. Lynn de Souza, chairperson of RSCI had then told Brandwagon, ?Our job will be to make the study more relevant to a transforming media world.?
Paritosh Joshi, former chief executive of Star CJ and current head of the technical committee at RSCI, agrees that the media agnosticism amongst consumers is very real and it has caused stakeholders in the print media, and especially RSCI, to introspect. ?When MRUC began with the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) in 1995, there was no visible presence of other media. The television industry was nascent and still finding its feet. Out of home was unorganised and terribly fragmented. Radio was state-owned and there was no private FM.?
The latest media and entertainment report brought out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and KPMG estimates that the print industry which comprises around 82,000 registered newspapers and more than 73,000 magazines was worth R20,900 crore by the end of 2011, and says it will grow to R32,340 crore by 2016. In 2011, the print industry accounted for R13,940 crore of advertising revenue, which is projected to grow to R24,060 crore by 2016. The year 2011 is expected to be difficult for the print media, which while continuing to be the second largest medium is expected to grow by only by 10.6% given the grim economic situation. As the print industry struggles with low advertising revenue, digital measurement provides a chance to newspaper publishers to monetize a new set of eyeballs they have been gathering beyond their print offerings. RSCI will by 2013 begin measuring audiences for digital editions of newspapers. The proposed digital readership survey will not only shed some light on the online news reading patterns of media consumers but will also help media owners in monetizing their online platforms more efficiently.
?We need to find out more on digital exposure and how big it is. A large number of internet users can be seen today reading and forwarding news items from various sources. Increasing number of articles forwarded from sources such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are a case in point. What this reflects is whether print survives or not, news certainly will and we need to understand this development better.?
He said that millions of page views are served everyday by both Western and Indian publications. ?What we plan to do is that on a random basis, when a publication page is served, the reader will be asked if he or she is willing to participate in a short market survey. The respondent will be asked a few classification questions on age, occupation, etc. If the person is willing, it will be equivalent to placing a cookie on her computer. So if she triggers a page view, the cookie gets triggered. And you get to find out that a particular page of a particular newspaper or magazine has been viewed by a person of a certain profile,? explains Joshi.
Media owners are pleased with the development. ?We are comfortable with the online numbers we have been generating ourselves. But it will be great to have a neutral body like the RSCI validating them. The move is timely as consumers are headed in that direction,? said Arunabh Das Sharma, president, Bennett Coleman & Co (BCCL), the owner of dailies such as The Times of India and The Economic Times.
It isn?t merely English platforms that have woken up to the reality of online audiences. Even the regional players have been building up their presence online and are keen to measure the results.
?Newspaper publishers have for long been pushing for measurement of digital audiences,in order to monetize their online editions better,? said I Venkat, director at Eenadu Publications. ?Regional players have been busy developing applications and content for their online editions. It?s a great move on the part of the RSCI,? he said. Eenadu Online generates roughly 11 million page views in a month and 43% of the views are generated out of India, he said.
Suresh Srinivasan, vice-president(advertising), The Hindu Group Of Publications, says there is a lot of online information available already via agencies such as comScore India. ?It will be interesting to see what RSCI has to give beyond page views information, given by comScore,? he said.
Joshi, however, points out that comScore data is more suited for developed markets where the online audience is homogenous. ?The online Indian audience is a lot more complex and there are a lot of different textures which the RSCI will be able to capture,? he said.
According to industry estimates there are currently 100 million internet users in the country and a large percentage of this population accesses the internet to either receive or send email or to access information. So far there is no clarity on what percentage of this population consumes news and in what fashion and also, which are the most popular news sources online. A study by Vizisense, Komli Media’s online audience and ad measurement platform, which came out last week, said two crore of the estimated 4.8 crore mobile internet users in India have shifted 50 per cent of their newspaper and television time to their mobile screens . RSCI’s digital survey is expected to bring further clarity on these trends.
Besides increased news consumption on the internet, digital advertising is also growing. According to a report by GroupM, the media buying arm of WPP, digital advertising spends are expected to reach R1,969 crore in 2012, from R1,515 crore last year. There are no estimates on how much of this goes to online platforms operated by newspapers but media owners are hopeful a digital audience survey will help them monetize their efforts better.
The IRS is currently one of the most comprehensive studies in media and has an an annual sample size of 255,888 households and reports data from more than 75 towns. ?While we are doing an incredible exercise at an all-India level, when you break down the data into specific regions, the problems start manifesting themselves. Zonal reporting needs to improve,? said RSCI?s Joshi. He adds that the survey will significantly increase its district-level reporting by 2013. The number of households would also exceed 3 lakh.
One big experiment that will be conducted on the IRS in year 2013, is what is called data fusion. ?For example, if there are two people in their mid-twenties, they will have similar tastes in music, clothes and media consumption. One will be called the donor and the other the receiver, and there will be variables to match the two of them,? he says.
While readership data mainly concerns the print industry and the advertisers who ride print platforms to reach their target groups, MRUC is being asked to extend its coverage to other media, especially new media. While television is out of its ambit, the MRUC will by 2013 look to measure other media such as radio and outdoor. Some years back, it had instituted the Indian Listenership Track (ILT) which was discontinued because of infrequent release of data. The radio stations and media buyers were asking for weekly data as it happens with television. Joshi said that MRUC now plans to give comprehensive data for radio ? not just the day part and reach figures given currently. He expects that there will be enough takers for the radio data. ?We have put Sandip Tarkas ? president of customer strategy at Future Group in charge of the outdoor study. The finer details are yet to be ironed out,? said Joshi.
Anita Bose, vice president at Vivaki Exchange, the centralized media buying unit of the Publicis Groupe, pointed out that any alternative to existing radio data was welcome. ?We use existing radio data released by TAM Media Research to determine long term trends in radio. Anything to supplement this would be a big help.? Bose conceded that RAM (radio audience measurement) data from TAM is yet to be used in the same spirit as the company’s television data.
Similarly with outdoor media, MRUC hopes to improve upon its earlier surveys. In 2009, it had initiated the Indian Outdoor Survey (IOS) for Mumbai and Pune, but that initiative failed to have much impact amongst media buyers as its coverage was limited. Another attempt was made in 2011, but that too failed to take off. ?I hope that this study is not limited to one or two cities. It should cover at least the top 10-12 cities of India, in order for it to be taken seriously,? said Indrajit Sen, outdoor consultant and executive director of the Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA).
The MRUC is also looking to bring in longitudinal studies which are done over a period of time to track changing trends, to trace the media consumption habits of an individual from the time he wakes up till the time he goes to bed. Joshi says, ?We ‘ll try and incorporate a study where we look at a day in the life of a certain person. The problem with most research is that it tends to measure people as aggregates, not as individuals. This study will look specifically at individuals,? He adds that this longitudinal study will capture high tech worth individuals, as opposed to high net worth individuals.
Not everyone’s impressed with these ambitious plans on the part of MRUC and RSCI. Ajit Varghese, managing director for media buying agency Maxus, part of GroupM, said that there was far too much media information available already. He points out that there is a latent need for wholesome consumer behaviour studies, rather than more research dedicated to media consumption. Apart from research companies, media agencies themselves were generating plenty of media consumption data. Any further efforts on this, and it could be an overkill, he cautions.
A media buying executive closely related to the MRUC cautions that the big challenge for both RSCI and MRUC was to move ahead with the times, without escalating the costs much. ?Remember that this is a time when most media companies are strapped for budgets. The body will find it to difficult to get financial backing for its ventures.?opposed to high net worth individuals.