INDIAN READERSHIP

SURVEY

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AMLAN ANURAG
20150122090`

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The Indian Readership Survey (IRS) is the largest continuous readership research
study in the world with an annual sample size exceeding 2.56 lakh respondents. IRS
collects a comprehensive range of demographic information and provides extensive
coverage of consumer and product categories, including cars, household appliances,
household durables, household care and personal care products, food and
beverages, finance and holidays. RS is not restricted to survey of readership alone
but is synonymous with both readership & consumption across various FMCG (FastMoving Consumer Goods) products throughout India. IRS covers information on over
100 product categories. IRS is conducted by MRUC (Media Research Users
Council) and RSCI (Readership Studies Council of India).
The main purpose and aim of MRUC are to determine the needs and frequencies of
research and surveys assessment of various media for advertising,to conduct
research in readership, viewership and listenership of various media for advertising,
to maintain and propagate highest possible standards of integrity, fairness and
reliability in media research, to ensure that its output are not misused to convey a
misleading impression, to develop and disseminate software and other methods of
handling media research, to provide a forum for discussion and resolution of
disputes, to maintain and uphold fair and ethical practice of media research.
IRS was launched in the year 1995 with an objective of setting an industry standard
for readership & other media measurement, & to provide insights on media & product
consumption as well as consumer behaviour patterns. In the year 1995-96, 23 Metro
Reports were released followed by the All India Report consisting of urban and rural
data. Simultaneously a software programme was developed to not just enable the
optimum use of raw data but to also carry out multi media planning which provided a
common basis of media evaluation.Over the years IRS has evolved to be very
progressive, covering a broad spectrum of categories from Media data, Indian
Demographics, Indian Market, Product Profiles, to the recently developed Telecom
Report, TV Report, and IRS Countryside. Apart from a range of products offered new
changes have been introduced in the method of classification of sub regions from
SCRs to ISDs, which is a more microscopic view of the consumer profile based on
the sociocultural ethnicity. From a users perspective, a few introductions in the
form of participative sampling, customised queries have been introduced.Sub Metro
level reporting for a better understanding of the consumer behaviour patterns across
different zones in the Metros & Edition wise reporting is the other recent introduction.
The Indian Readership Survey was digitised in the year 2013. Main changes of the
survey process included introducing computer aided personal interviews (CAPI) for
the entire 2.35 lakh sample size of the IRS. Further, all the interviewers are tracked

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through GPS to eliminate the possibility of fudging. Earlier, subscribers of the IRS
frequently complained that data in the study was fudged simply because interviewers
were just too tired of carrying out back-to-back interviews. It has also restricted the
duration of an interview to just 30 minutes. While the IRS will continue providing
media and product consumption data as it did earlier, with a more rigorous process
of data collection now in place, the study is expected to be more robust and
accurate.Nielsen is appointed as the research agency for conducting the survey and
TCS is the technology developer.
The new IRS surveys has brought in significant enhancements over the year few of
which are introduction of dual screen CAPI methodology which significantly reduces
the non-sampling errors in the survey, population estimates are made according to
the latest census so as to get accurate projections, participation from north east
states was boosted to offer new insights into readership, media consumption and
demographics of North East India, FMCG items that are purchased or consumed in
different patterns and usage patters are all measured, district level reporting was
introduced in 2013.
The methodology for IRS research is as follows:
The IRS data is reported at the Household level and at an Individual level.
Household Data: The household data is collected by interviewing the householder.
Information in the household section is focused on all household details from the
household composition, durables owned, household items purchased and other key
demographic variables. A Normal Household is defined as a group of people who
normally live together and take their meals from a common kitchen unless the nature
of their work prevent any of them from doing so. Persons in a household may be
related or unrelated to each other. There may be one member households, two
member households or multi-member households. The link in understanding whether
it is a household or not, is a common kitchen.
The Householder is defined as: A person who takes the decision on purchase of day
to day household products such as groceries, toothpastes, soaps, detergents etc.
with respect to what to purchase, when to purchase and how much to purchase is a
Householder. This person has to be staying in the household and can be a male or a
female. The householder need not always decide on the brands. The householder
need not always physically go to the shop to buy these products; the householder
may only be suggesting the requirements while someone else implements it.

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Individual Data: Individual data is collected from a systematically randomly selected

person who is 12 years or older and stays in the household. The Individual
Questionnaire is mainly focused on capturing readership of publications, TV viewing,
Radio listening, Mobile usage, Internet usage, Cinema going habits and personal
usage of selected products.
Data Capture: IRS has introduced DS-CAPI (Dual-Screen Computer Assisted
Personal Interview) as a new way of capturing data for the IRS. The DS-CAPI
method eliminates the need for printed masthead booklets and instead uses a
second device (dual screen) to display mastheads and other stimulus to the
respondent. The DS-CAPI data capture methodology has these benefits:
Simpler for the interviewer to navigate through the questionnaire.
Simpler for the interviewer to manage the large amount of stimuli material better
as all the stimuli automatically appear on a separate screen, in front of the
respondent.
Simpler and more comfortable for the female respondent, as the method allows her
to sit at a comfortable distance from the interviewer, hitherto not possible in the
Pen-and-Paper or CAPI methods.
Quality Assurance: Quality of data collected is of utmost importance and is ensured
by enforcing multiple checks:
On-the-ground Quality Checks: A face-to-face follow-up interaction with the
respondent is conducted to monitor and maintain the quality of data collected. All
field managers are empowered with real time tools to monitor progress and quality.
Telephonic Quality Checks: A dedicated team makes telephone calls to the
interviewed respondents and checks for compliance. This is to assure that the
interviewers correctly followed norms.
Real Time Workforce Tracking: Through which interviewers are tracked while they
are on field, assuring better control over data capture.
Audio Recording Back-Checks:A dedicated team listens to audio recorded questions
from the interview and ascertains if questions were rightly asked and responses
correctly coded.
District Clustering: IRS has considered a Hybrid approach for district/s reporting,
which is reporting some Districts independently, and others in clusters. The objective
of this exercise was to cluster Districts in a meaningful manner from a Readership
perspective. This innovative approach adds another dimension beyond clustering
Districts by either population or literacy.
Methodology adopted for District Clustering:

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IRS examines a large number of variables from the Census 2011, including
household variables like type of house, electricity, telephone connection, water
source as well as population, literacy and urbanisation.
Circulation is taken as the surrogate variable for readership and identified variables
which had a strong correlation with circulation. The three variables that had the
strongest correlation with circulation were population, literacy and urbanisation (%
urban population of total population).
As these variables had high correlation coefficients, IRS combined these variables
through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and constructed a linear combination
of these three variables, which in a manner speaking the importance of the District
with respect to readership perspective.
It is ensured that the clustered districts are geographically contiguous and belonged
to the same SCR.
The distribution of number of districts independently reported and reported at a
cluster level are 92 Individual districts and 99 Clustered Districts.

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