IRS supplier pitches for rival survey contract

INDIA-- The producer of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) is reportedly pitching to revive the publisher-supported National Readership Survey (NRS), which has been suspended for the last three years because of doubts over data.

Hansa Research, commissioned to conduct the IRS by the advertiser-backed Media Research Users Council (MRUC), is one of the agencies competing to take up the NRS, according to business newspaper Mint.

The NRS was conducted by Nielsen until the survey was suspended in 2006, and Nielsen and IMRB have also pitched to the council that oversees the survey, Mint reported.

Sabina Solomon, general manager of the MRUC, said Hansa would have to drop the IRS if it were to take up the NRS contract. Paresh Nath, deputy president of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), said it would not be ethical for Hansa to hold the contracts for two competing surveys.

The INS has in the past raised questions over the ability of both surveys to measure India's growing middle-class newspaper audience, and there are disagreements over whether the industry would benefit more from competition between suppliers or from a single unified survey – especially in the face of tough economic conditions.

Although closer links have recently been forged between the organisers of the two surveys in order to share technical expertise, they have denied that a merger is on the cards.

Author: Robert Bain

Related links:

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Indian Newspaper Society makes links with IRS

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India's readership surveys deny ‘merger'