IRS Q2 2012: Print continues slide, digital zooms

It’s not all hunky dory for newspapers in India, as the total readership of the top 10 newspapers in India continues the downward trend. Digital, as a medium, continues to ratchet up impressive numbers

The latest figures of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS 2012 Q2), reveals that the cumulative readership of the top ten newspapers in India has shrunk by 4,61,000 readers.

You can look at the Table 1 below to see the growth/losses of the top ten publications.

Of the top ten newspapers, only Dainik Jagran, Hindustan and Lokmat have shown growth, while the other 7 have shown losses in readership.

The overall picture for print seems more bleak when seen in the context of growth of various media over the past year. See table II.

Press has shown a CAGR (percent) of just 0.9 percent from Q4 2011 to Q2 2012 - the worst performing of all media. TV has grown by 5 percent, C&S by 11.7 percent, Radio by 1.9 percent, Cinema by 9.4 percent.

And digital, the darling of consumers, continues the high-speed growth - showing CAGR of 34.8 percent for the period under consideration.