Times of India starts challenge to pick leading daily of Delhi NCR

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL), which publishes The Times of India, said headline circulation data for English newspapers in the National Capital Region was misleading and that a close examination shows TOI is far ahead of rival Hindustan Times by a substantial 38 per cent margin when it comes to regular, “fully loaded” copies.

Advertisers were welcome to witness the extent to which TOI does better than HT in Delhi NCR by visiting distribution centres of their choice as part of what has been dubbed the TOI Challenge.

“We are challenging media planners and ad guys to visit any of our depots in Delhi and see for themselves that there is not a single depot where we don't outsell HT,” said BCCL executive director and president Arunabh Das Sharma.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations report for July-December 2013 puts TOI at 10.4 lakh and HT at 10.6 lakh in the national capital. “But a different picture emerges when it comes to ‘regular’ copies, or those that are fully loaded, carry supplements and are listed in ABC as 'single' or 'combo' copies,” said Rahul Kansal, executive president of BCCL, which also publishes The Economic Times. “With respect to these copies, TOI is actually 38 per cent ahead of HT.”

The numbers are inflated largely by HT 2 Minutes, which accounts for 2.7 lakh copies, or 26 per cent of HT's total. This scaled-down version of HT rarely exceeds 12 pages and does not carry supplements such as HT City, Brunch and HT Estates.

It also carries a lower proportion of the ads printed in the regular HT edition or its supplements—less than 30 per cent in editions between September 1 and 6.This means that more than a quarter of HT’s circulation in Delhi NCR won't have an ad if it is among the 70 per cent not carried in HT 2 Minutes, based on the above analysis.BCCL also reiterated its criticism of Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2013, saying that the recent revalidation by the Media Research Users Council had been an opaque exercise.

“We utterly dispute the IRS 2013 but even if we were to consider it, in Delhi region our group has 3.2 lakh more readers than HT group,” Kansal said. IRS 2013 has already been criticised by major newspaper groups as being badly skewed.

The survey suggests that HT Media is the only publishing house that bucked a disappointing trend by somehow developing more readers for every copy it sells. The IRS findings also include the incongruity of HT having a readership in Noida of 10.7 per issue, which is impossibly high, BCCL said.

The survey was questioned by publishers of Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, India Today, Anandabazar Patrika, Outlook, Daily News and Analysis (DNA) and The Hindu among others.

Newspaper publishers had pointed out gross anomalies that included wild swings in overall newspaper readership across states besides the apparent obliteration of some segments. The findings were kept in abeyance while the agency that conducted the survey undertook to revalidate its numbers.

But nothing much changed after the exercise was completed. Kansal said, “The detailed revalidation report has not been shared with us, so we have no way of knowing whether the many misgivings we have shared with IRS have been addressed by the revalidation auditor.”

Given the actual numbers, the TOI Challenge will make clear to advertisers why they don't any daily beyond TOI and Navbharat Times to do justice to their next media plan for Delhi and NCR, BCCL said.