At a time when digital reading is growing rapidly in India, the print edition of The Hindu has also sharply increased its readership in the latest Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2019 Q1 as compared to IRS 2017, indicating the growing popularity of the newspaper.

In this readership survey conducted by Nielsen for the Media Research Users Council (MRUC), the findings of which were released on Friday, The Hindu has maintained its number 2 position among all English language newspapers in the country.

As per the data released by the MRUC, The Hindu had an all-India total readership of 62,26,000 in the IRS 2019 Q1 as compared to the total readership of 53,00,000 in IRS 2017, up 17%. In terms of average issue readership (read yesterday), it increased its numbers from 15,68,000 to 16,35,000, up 4.27%.

As per the IRS, the overall readership of all daily publications increased by 1.8 crore to 42.5 crore since IRS 2017. Magazines also reported increased readership of 8.7 crore, which is 90 lakh more than the numbers in the last survey.

Online newspaper readership has grown 5% on an all-India basis. Active Internet users have grown significantly and now constitute 24% of the total universe.

Among English daily newspapers, The Times of India retained its number one position, followed by The Hindu and The Economic Times. The data for The Hindustan Times has not been included as the numbers are being reviewed and its ranking expected to be be updated shortly, said MRUC officials.

IRS to be released every quarter, says official

“The print story continues to grow with the total number of readers increasing from 40.7 crore to 42.5 crore. Also the internet usage has increased with India now having a total of 384 million active internet users. These findings are in line with the market truths and a testimony of IRS’ rigorous processes and quality control norms,” said Ashish Bhasin, CEO, Greater South & Chairman & CEO-India, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman MRUC while releasing the survey report.

He said henceforth IRS will be released every quarterly and will be a seamless process.

“The overall media consumption and print in particular is vibrant and growing. Most stakeholders should be encouraged with this snapshot of how India is consuming media and print,” said Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, Madison Media & OOH, & Chairman of IRS Technical Committee.

“We have used technology to infuse a totally new standard of field controls. The resultant data is robust and representative of the diversity and heterogeneity of our wonderful country,” he said.

The total sample size of IRS 2019 Q1 was 324,286 households and the report is based on a rolling average of data from last three quarters of IRS 2017 and one fresh quarter from IRS 2019 (November 2018 till April 2019).

Among Tamil language dailies the The Hindu Tamil featured as number 5 with total readership of 2728,000. The Sportstar also features among top 20 magazines with increased readership of 34,37,000 in IRS 2019 Q1 as against 29,37,000 in IRS 2017. Sportstar is No 11 in the list. Among English magazines it is No 3 after India Today and General Knowledge Today in terms of total readership.