ASSIGNMENT- 4

Census and NRS (National readership survey)

NRS
The National Readership Survey today provides the most authoritative and valued audience
research in use for print and digital advertising trading
The survey is done on an all-India basis, urban as well as rural, amongst individuals who are 12
years and older. All town classes are covered in the urban area. However, only towns with a
population higher than two lakh are reported on an individual basis, smaller towns are reported
on the basis of socio-cultural regions defined by language homogeneity, geographic
homogeneity, financial and economic administration, regionalization of culture and lifestyle,
caste and class homogeneity.
NRS gives information on the different parameters like the reach of each medium among various
audiences defined demographically. It also gives information on the duplication between media,
as well as between vehicles within the same medium. For publications, one gets the number of
readers, type of readers in demographic terms (NRS defines readers by sex, age, income, socio-
economic class, occupation, education, geographical location), spread of these readers, and
lifestyle parameters such as product ownership and consumption patterns.
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the
members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular
population.
The census is a special, wide-range activity, which takes place once a decade in the entire
country. Its purpose is to gather information about the general population, in order to present a
full and reliable picture of the population in the country - its housing conditions and
demographic, social and economic characteristics. The information collected includes data on
age, gender, country of origin, year of immigration, marital status, housing conditions, marriage,
number of children, education, employment, traveling habits, etc.

The population census is the most detailed information source on the population at the level of
small localities, neighborhoods in cities and small groups in the population. The data acquired
forms a basis of information that is available to public and private elements, at the national and
local level, for purposes of decision-making in a variety of areas of the life of residents of the
country.


DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CENSUS AND NRS
Census uses by Government
Government ministries - the census data are available to decision-makers as a basis for setting
policies in various fields: education, health, welfare, dealing with various levels in the
population, housing and development, transportation and other services.

Planning and provision of services in the educational system according to the needs of the
population and the age of the children.
Planning of public transportation and transportation infrastructure, according to the
projected amount of traffic in the area.
Planning a system of assistance to the needy.
Development of infrastructure according to the needs of the population.
Channeling of budgets to local authorities.

Uses of NRS
Since advertisers who relied on plain circulation (paid sales) data for the allocation of their
media budgets did not have access to data on the quality of readership each publication has, they
did not know whether money was being used effectively or wasted. Studies like the NRS give
details not only about the number of readers, but also quality of readers, and the duplication of
readers with other competitive publications.
NRS data is widely used by media planners for finalising the media strategy. Besides giving the
readership habits, NRS also provides valuable insights into the consumption habits of the Indian
consumer.

Similarities
Both Census and NRSs purpose is to gather information about the population, but it differs on
the scale where census is a macro and NRS is micro focusing on a particular sector.
Census and NRSs data are mainly used in decision making in different areas. Data from Census
is mainly used for purposes of planning, development and improvement of the residents' quality
of life. But NRS is used to effectively estimate the budget for media usage, and also used by
media planners for finalising the media strategy.
The essential idea of both these surveys is to find out the details of the information in the
respective fields and make it available to the decision makers for better planning, implementing
and regulating.