[icernet] TV news appetizer for newspapers: Indian study

[Arul Selvan]

  With the recent proliferation of news TV channels, the real winners 
are the newspapers, according to an ongoing study conducted by the 
Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies (CMS). TV news seems to have left 
readers asking for more. In other words, the more news you see on TV, 
the greater is the tendency to pick up a newspaper, according to CMS' 
study on the "Appetizer effect of TV news on newspaper readership". "TV 
news is adding to the readership as well as credibility of mainline 
daily newspapers", says N Bhaskara Rao, chairman, CMS. The study, a 
survey of 150 'viewer-readers' in New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and 
Hyderabad, has been conducted over the past one year. CMS found that the 
sample that watched TV news the previous night spent 60 per cent more 
time in reading newspapers. The study revealed that TV viewers returned 
to newspapers to get details as well as to reconfirm the credibility of 
news on TV. It also said the credibility of mainline newspapers has 
improved over TV news during the last one year. Interestingly, the 
survey findings were most apparent in Chennai, followed by Hyderabad, 
Delhi and Kolkata. The study also highlighted that housewives are 
spending more time with newspapers. On future trends, CMS maintained 
that this "complementary phenomenon" between the two media will grow in 
the years ahead. Across
the country, TV reaches a little over 50 per cent of the adult 
population against nearly 40 per cent for all newspapers. Since 2000, 
the readership base in India has grown from 163 million to 180 million, 
a growth of 10 per cent. Currently, cable and
satellite TV news has a reach in over 25 million cable homes. Then 
there's India's official TV channel, the Doordarshan, which enters over 
75 million homes. Post September 11, TV news viewership has grown by 250 
per cent.

Source:
http://www.irna.com/en/head/030423154359.ehe.shtml