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IRS 2009 R2: Lokmat reports highest growth amongst language dailies
The Marathi daily has recorded a readership of 2.32 crore by adding 26 lakh readers in the current round
Marathi
As per the current round of Indian Readership Survey (IRS), the language dailies have all recorded a slight decline. However, Lokmat, the Marathi daily has sprung a surprise.
Daily Sakal is the second most widely read Marathi daily, with a readership of 1.15 crore, It has lost roughly 14 lakh readers since the last round. Punya Nagari is at No. 3, with a readership of 1.03 crore, adding 4.47 lakh readers since R1 2009.
Gujarati
Gujarat Samachar is the most widely read Gujarati daily with a readership of 87.3 lakh, which is also what it had recorded in R2 2008. There's been a slight decline over the last round.
Sandesh is the second most widely read Gujarati daily with 62.9 lakh readers. It has lost 5.8 lakh readers since R1 2008. Divya Bhaskar is at No. 3 with 57.3 lakh readers, adding 1.6 lakh readers over R1 2009.
Bengali
Among Bangla dailies, Ananda Bazar Patrika claims top spot with 1.53 crore readers, close to the readership recorded in R2 2008. In the last round, it had recorded a readership of 1.55 crore.
Bartaman is the second highest read Bangla daily, with 79.9 lakh readers. It has lost over 4 lakh readers since R2 2008. In the third spot is Sangbad Pratidin, which has garnered a readership of 39.6 lakh, losing 2 lakh readers since last round.
Malayalam
Malayala Manorama enjoys the title of the most read Malayalam daily. It has added more than 3 lakh readers over the last round, putting its readership figure at 1.29 crore. It had lost 4.8 lakh readers in R2 2008; but has made up for the loss in the next two rounds.
Mathrubhumi, which is the second most read Malayalam daily, has garnered a readership of 94.9 lakh, more or less unchanged from what it recorded in Round 1 this year. It has lost over 6 lakh readers since R1 2008.
In the third spot is Deshabhimani, with 34.4 lakh readers. It has added 2.8 lakh readers since the last round.
Tamil
Daily Thanthi, which is the most widely read Tamil daily, has lost 2 lakh readers since the last round. Its readership currently stands at 2.02 crore.
Dinakaran is at No 2 and commands a readership of 1.63 crore. It has lost 7 lakh readers since R1 2008. Its readership, as of R1 this year, was 1.66 crore.
Dinamalar follows with a readership of 96.4 lakh, losing around 4 lakh readers since the last round. It has lost around 8 lakh readers since R2 2008.
Kannada
Among Kannada dailies, Vijay Karnataka tops the list with 82.7 lakh readers. Its readership has declined from 92.2 lakh readers in R2 2008 to 87.4 lakh readers in R1 2009.
Prajvani is the second most read Kannada daily with a readership of 54.5 lakh. In the last round, it had recorded a readership of 55.8 lakh. Samyukta Karnataka's readership stands at 24.4 lakh, and it is the third most read Kannada daily. It has lost 7.8 lakh readers since R1 2008.
Telugu
Eenadu is the No. 1 Telugu daily, with 1.46 crore readers. Its readership declined to 1.39 crore in R1 this year, from 1.44 crore in R2 2008. Sakshi is the second most read Telugu daily with a readership of 1.25 crore. Andhra Jyoti is at No. 3, with 58.9 lakh readers. It has lost close to 10 lakh readers since R2 2008.
Assamese
Asomiya Pratidin tops the list of most read Assamese dailies, with a readership of 60 lakh. Its readership in the last round was 61.5 lakh. Dainik Agradoot and Asomiya Khabar's readership stands at 31 lakh each. Dainik Agradoot's readership has declined by 1.2 lakh; while Asomiya Khabar has lost 70, 000 readers.