In the print media, Readership Surveys are one the
most commonly used forms of research. A readership survey tries to understand
(i)
How
many people in all are reading a particular publication
(ii)
What
kinds of people are reading that particular publication
(iii)
How
often do these people read the publication
The two major readership surveys in India
Procedure for conducting a
readership survey
The first step in conducting a readership survey, is
to conduct a representative sample
of the larger population. Usually, addresses of all people living in a
particular city or area are acquired from the postal department, and few houses
are randomly chosen from them.
The people living in these houses are contacted, and
asked if they would like to participate in the survey. The ‘response rate’
describes the number of contacted people who agree to participate in these
surveys.
A readership survey has traditionally been conducted
through a booklet, containing the names and logos of all published newspapers
and magazines circulating in the area.
But of-late the
computer is used. Respondents are
asked to glance through a variety of mastheads and logos of publications on the
computer screen, and asked to choose the ones they have read at least once in
the past 12 months.
After this, the survey attempts to understand whether
the respondent is an ‘Average Issue
Reader’. The respondent is an ‘Average Issue Reader’ only if he has read a
copy of the publication in last publication interval. i.e. Past one day for a
newspaper, past one week for a weekly,
past one month for a monthly publication, and so on.
Questions pertaining to the
publication which are asked are :
Ø Reading
frequency : Which tries to
understand how often the reader usually reads the publication (answers can vary
from ‘Quite often’ which means he reads at least every second issue to
‘occasionally’ which means he reads only one of every five or six issues)
Ø Time spent in reading each issue of the
publication
Ø Source
of the copy: Which tries
to understand how they got the copy:
through delivery, bought at a newsstand, or borrowed from someone else.
Ø Who
reads the publication: It
tries who exactly in the house reads the publication: the respondents
themselves, or somebody else in the same house, or both.
Ø Topic
of Interest: Respondents
are asked which topics do they read the magazine for, or which sections in the
magazine they read the most. This is helpful both to magazines, who would find
out what interests the readers, and advertisers, who would want to know which
section of a particular magazine they should publish in.
Personal Details
In order to understand the composition of the
readership, a readership survey also asks several personal details about the
respondent such as:
Ø Gender
Ø Age
Ø Annual salary (on the basis of this, the
SECs of the readers are calculated. SEC stands for Socio-Economic Class. SEC A
stands for Upper and Upper Middle Class. SEC B stands for Middle Class. SEC C –
Stands for Lower middle Class and SEC D – Stands for those below the poverty
line)
Ø Region/Locality
Ø Marital Status
Ø Family details (Including details about
children if any)
Ø Educational Qualifications
Ø Shopping Preferences
Ø Travelling done up to now
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