A study commissioned by Prasar Bharti and carried out by IIM Rohtak on Monday was revealed, stating approximately 96 percent of the population is aware of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat. The programme has reached 100 crore people who are aware and have listened to the programme at least once. The findings of the study were brought out in a press conference by Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO, Prasar Bharati and Dheeraj P. Sharma, director, IIM Rohtak.
Speaking about the findings of the study, Sharma, said “23 crore people tune in to the programme regularly while another 41 crore constitute an occasional audience that has the scope of being converted into a regular audience.”
The report delves into the reasons behind the popularity of PM’s radio broadcast and lists out the most liked characteristics that hook people to the broadcast. The PM has been credited by the population of the country as knowledgeable and having sympathetic and empathetic approach. According to Sharma, the data was collected from north, south, east, and west regions of India using snowball sampling with approximately 2500 responses per zone, through a psychometrically purified survey instrument.
As per the study, a majority of listeners have become aware of governments working and 73 percent are optimistic and feel the country is going to progress. 58 percent of listeners have responded saying their living conditions have improved while 59 percent have reported increased trust in government. 63 percent of people have said their approach to the government has become positive and 60 percent have shown interest in working for nation-building.
The study distributes the audience across three platforms with 44.7 percent people tuning in to the programme on a TV while 37.6 percent access it on a mobile device.
Hindi grabs a major chunk of listeners of Mann Ki Baat with 65 percent audience preferring it over any other language while English comes in at second place with 18percent.
“The total sample strength of 10003 was polled for this study of which 60 percent were males while 40 percent were females. This population was spread over 68 occupations sectors with 64 percent being from the informal and self-employed sector while students constituted 23% percent of the studied audience.” added Sharma.
According to Dwivedi, Mann Ki Baat is broadcast in 11 Foreign languages excluding English namely, French, Chinese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Burmese, Baluchi, Arabic, Pashtu, Persian, Dari, and Swahili. He said the Mann ki Baat is being broadcast by more than 500 broadcast centers of All India Radio.
