Country's FM Radio channels chalks highest growth rates

Mumbai, Nov 8 (UNI) The FM radio stations of the country are chalking the healthiest growth among all media, while print media is losing ground, according to the indication of Media Research Users Council's (MRUC's) Indian Readership Survey (IRS) Round 2 (R2) for 2008.

FM radio's reach has grown by 56.3 per cent, while cable and satellite TV grew by 36.7 per cent and the internet by 55.9 per cent.

Print media, on the other hand, grew by just 8.3 per cent and the 'any radio' category grew by 12.1 per cent in the three-year-period between 2005 and 2008, a report said today.

According to the MRUC report, overall time spent on media has increased from 115.8 to 121.1 minutes but with people spending less time reading, print (down from 27.4 minutes in 2007 to 26.5 minutes in 2008) and internet (down from 62.3 minutes to 60.1 minutes) have taken the brunt.

Hooking up to radio music has gone up from 70.4 to 81.1 minutes, as compared to watching TV, which went up to 99.4 minutes from 96.4 minutes.

The survey also reveals that while there is a decline in the number of titles read, the number of channels consumed in TV and radio has showen an increasing trend, with the average number of FM channels showing a consistent growth curve of 30.8 per cent for the last three years.

Also revealing is the fact that newspapers are being consumed between breakfast and lunch, while radio, internet and magazines are being consumed between post-lunch break and till late evening.

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