Times loses ground to Dainik Jagran as most-read paper: IRS

Contrary to the hype with which it surrounds itself, The Times of India is far from being India's most popular newspaper. That honour goes to Hindi language stalwart Dainik Jagran, which continues to be India's most read newspaper across all languages.

In fact the Times has been losing readership, along with five of the top 10 English dailies - The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle, The Economic Times and DNA. On the other hand, the readership of Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express, Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror has gone up, according to the latest Indian Readership Survey (IRS) data.

The survey is the first edition of IRS' quarterly data on the Indian print media industry, released jointly by MRUC and Hansa Research Pvt Ltd. IRS used to publish a bi-annual data till now.

The Times of India has long been fond of front-paging the slightest gain in readership with banner headlines. To be fair, Hindustan Times and others have been quick to follow this lead. But it will be interesting to see how Times plays this one.

Dainik Jagran ranks No 1 among the dailies with a 'total readership' (TR) of 54,254,000. However it too has lost readership - in the last round it had gained around 2,00,000 readers, but in this round it has lost around 5,00,000 readers.

Today, Dainik Jagran has 37 editions across 11 states. Run by the Jagran Prakashan Ltd, the company's business spans across newspapers, internet, magazines and mobile value added services.