[cr-india] NRS 2005 on Radio

[Vickram Crishna]

At 6:45 AM +0000 6/9/05, sajan venniyoor wrote:
>Radio's reach has stagnated at 23 per cent of the population 
>listening to any station in the average week. It has improved its 
>performance in urban India (23 per cent listen to radio as compared 
>to 20 per cent three years ago) primarily due to FM. In rural areas, 
>the reach has dropped from 25 per cent three years ago to 23 per 
>cent this year.

This expresses the reality of technology, starkly. FM is low reach, 
by design. Given the overpoweringly superior sound quality, it is 
obvious that there was a good reason to prefer FM for radio 
expansion, but that presupposes that expansion would in fact take 
place. In reach, not in number of stations.

Instead, we see the number of FM stations burgeoning, but by no means 
fast enough to result in net expansion of reach.

>Among the 183 million adults who listened to radio in the last three 
>months, 43 per cent or 96.8 million, now tune on to any FM station, 
>thus leading to an increase of more than 100 per cent over 2002. 
>Also notable is the fact that FM has a larger audience base than 
>Vividh Bharati (15.7 per cent compared to 11.3 per cent) in urban 
>India.

Is it possible to get comparative figures for rural audiences? I fear 
we will find that it is far more dismal, but it is important to know. 
What about the state-wise breakup?

-- 
Vickram