IRS 2013 in abeyance for 6 more weeks

The decision to extend the period of abeyance came after the MRUC met with Readership Survey Council

The findings of the Indian Readership Survey, which stirred a controversy earlier this year, will continue to be in abeyance for four to six weeks, the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) said on Tuesday.

The decision came after MRUC met the Readership Survey Council of India (RSCI) to consider the preliminary report of the sub-committee appointed to assess IRS 2013.

The sub-panel had found the methodology and process adopted for the survey were robust and both MRUC and RSCI accepted this finding. The two bodies that jointly own the IRS also approved the sub-committee's recommendation of appointing a third party to revalidate and audit of the field work. The chosen party is expected to start work immediately. The estimated time for the audit and revalidation is four to six weeks. Till then, the IRS 2013 data continues to be in abeyance and subscribers are advised not to use it for commercial purposes.

IRS 2013 was issued on January 28 and publications soon began to point to alleged anomalies. Three days later, 18 publications issued a statement and demanded withdrawal of the data with immediate effect. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) then met MRUC on February 3 and told it to withdraw the data in 24 hours or have INS members withdraw their subscriptions to these. MRUC officials met on February 4; they decided to take a final call only on February19, after meeting RSCI.

After doing so, MRUC announced the IRS 2013 data would be evaluated by an independent sub-committee through March.