MRUC releases topline findings of SPARR

The Media Research Users Council (MRUC) released its topline findings of Sections, Pullouts & Attitudinal Readership Research (SPARR), conducted in Delhi and Mumbai by Hansa Research, in the capital on Tuesday evening. The SPARR study compares the readership of supplements with the main newspaper. The study also indicates the variations in readership for different pages of a daily vis-à-vis the front page, the city news page, the sports page or the business page. Speaking about the latest study, Roda Mehta, chairperson, technical committee, MRUC, said, "SPARR is a new offering to the market to empower better decisions guided by psychographic definitions right down to a sub-city level."

In Delhi, as many as eight publications including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Navbharat Times, Hindustan, Dainik Jagran, Punjab Keshri, Rashtriya Sahara and The Economic Times were taken into consideration. Rashtriya Sahara and Economic Times, having a penetration of less than 2 per cent, were not included in the final report. As per the SPARR study, going by supplement genre, lifestyle and entertainment supplements have the highest readership of 40-80 per cent, varying across the six publications. General interest supplements follow, with a readership of 43-60 per cent. While city specials have a readership of 42-57 per cent, and education and employment supplements have a readership of 48-57 per cent, only 34-41 per cent of readers check out the investment and property business supplements.

The SPARR also indicates the readership of individual editorial sections within a given newspaper. Among the eight broadly classified heads, the front page enjoys the maximum readership of 80-95 per cent. Front-page readership of The Times of India stands at 95 per cent, followed by Hindustan Times at 94 per cent. The front-page readership of Punjab Keshri is the least, with 80 per cent of total readership. The city news section comes next with 70-85 per cent of all readers showing interest in the section. Among the six dailies, the city news section of Hindustan Times tops the list with 85 per cent, followed by The Times of India at 81 per cent. The national and international news sections have a standard readership of 53-69 per cent and 39-54 per cent, respectively. Apart from these, 25-42 per cent of all readers are interested in the sports sections. The study indicates that readers of Hindustan and Dainik Jagran are bigger followers of sport, with 42 and 38 per cent (respectively) of readers interested in the section. Interestingly, the least read sections are the editorial and business sections - the two sections attract only 17-29 and 12-20 per cent of total readership.

Paresh Nath, chairman, MRUC, says, "More than merely a study of readership of newspaper supplements and pullouts, SPARR is also a study of attitudes of readers." As per the SPARR study, while an average reader in Delhi spends 38 per cent of his/her household income on food, Mumbai shows a different picture, with 39 per cent of the household income being spent on infrastructure. Likewise, an average reader in Delhi spends 26 per cent of his/her total household expenditure on infrastructure, while food accounts for 23 per cent of the household expenditure for an average reader in Mumbai. The average total household expenditure also differs in the two cities, with the figure for Mumbai standing at Rs 6,603, while that in Delhi reads Rs 5,237. After food and infrastructure, savings and investments account for the maximum expenditure, consuming 11 per cent of the total household expenditure. Using the socio-economic classification, the difference between SEC A and SEC D&C is minimum, with the latter spending 8 per cent of its total household expenditure on savings and investments, while the former spends 10 per cent.

The uniqueness of SPARR is that this new research product would help advertisers design better media plans with more accurate target reach, and would also help publications in identifying strong selling points. The MRUC plans to come up with SPARR study reports once in two years. © 2004 agencyfaqs!