IRS 2013: No Doubts Here

The Media Research Users Council (MRUC) has removed the voluntary abeyance on the Indian Readership Survey 2013.

The Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2013 was released on January 28, 2014. The release attracted differing views on the accuracy of the data forcing the Readership Survey Council of India (RSCI) to request subscribers to hold the study in abeyance and undertake a revalidation exercise.

Subsequently, a sub-committee for revalidation was established with two co-chairs representing publishers and ad agencies. The sub-committee unanimously concluded that the methodology used to conduct IRS 2013 was in order and decided to commission a Process Audit. The committee, after viewing several proposals agreed to award the audit to Praveen Tripathi, an expert on large-scale studies of media consumption behaviour.

It was decided that the findings would be discussed by the heads of the four industry bodies - the chairman, RSCI, chairman, MRUC, president, INS and chairman, ABC - before making any decision.

The audit was conducted in two stages. Stage one involved direct back-checking of respondent homes after which a much broader and deeper Forensic Statistical Analysis exercise was carried out to identify and isolate both fieldwork compliance deficiencies and incidences of occurrence of Unusual Publication Incidence (UPI) in respondent interview records.

After intense deliberations and a careful examination of the audit report, it was unanimously decided to lift the voluntary abeyance placed on the Readership Survey.