MUMBAI: Cable and Satellite penetration has increased by 53 per cent to 61 million homes in 2005, up from 40 million homes in 2002, according to the findings of the National Readership Study (NRS) 2005.

Television now reaches 108 million homes, which means it has crossed the 50 per cent mark of all homes for the first time, thus reflecting a growth of 32 per cent since 2002. Additionally, 56 per cent of all TV homes in India have C&S subscription.

The study revealed that the reach of satellite television has grown by leaps and bounds from 134 million individuals watching TV in an average week in 2002 to as many as 190 million individuals in 2005.

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have the highest C&S penetration (55 per cent each), followed by Karnataka (45 per cent).

Tamil Nadu has the highest TV reach of 77 per cent, whereas Andhra Pradesh has a 74 per cent reach. Karnataka, on the other hand, has a TV reach of 68 per cent.

Interestingly, two-thirds (70 per cent) of C&S homes have colour TV today. In 2002, only a little over half the C&S homes had colour TV. The growth of colour televisions have outstripped even the rapid C&S growth. Homes with colour TV have doubled to 58 million in 2005.

Internet reach has now exceeded the 10 million mark. The number of individuals aged 12 years and above who accessed the Internet in the last three months increased to 11 million in 2005. While 8 million of these are in urban India, close to 3 million Internet users reside in rural India.

Radio's reach has stagnated at 23 per cent of the population listening to any station in the average week. It has improved its performance in urban India (23 per cent listen to radio as compared to 20 per cent three years ago) primarily due to FM. In rural areas, the reach has dropped from 25 per cent three years ago to 23 per cent this year.

Among the 183 million adults who listened to radio in the last three months, 43 per cent or 96.8 million, now tune on to any FM station, thus leading to an increase of more than 100 per cent over 2002. Also notable is the fact that FM has a larger audience base than Vividh Bharati (15.7 per cent compared to 11.3 per cent) in urban India.

Mobile phones have also emerged as a new medium. Almost 13.9 per cent mobile phone owners access value added features like downloads, accessing news and cricket scores, SMS etc. In the 35 metros that the survey covered, this figure stands higher at 24.7 per cent.

The NRS 2005 survey covered 261,212 respondents in India. NRSC research professional Kedernath Sharma, technical advisor Dr Shridhar and audit firm Ernst & Young were instrumental in the efforts behind the study. AC Nielsen was appointed as the research agency and significant improvements in design and methodology were made in order to yield robust readership estimates.