MUMBAI: Continuing the trend from the preceding quarter, Dainik Jagran and The Times of India are the most read publications in the Hindi and English language dailies respectively, according to the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) first-quarter report released by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and Hansa Research.

Among the Hindi dailies, Dainik Jagran?s average issue readership (AIR) has surged marginally while second ranked Dainik Bhaskar has lost out on readers. Hindustan comes in on number three having increased its readership as has fourth place holder Amar Ujala.

There was no change in the pecking order of the Hindi dailies. Dainik Jagran?s AIR has grown marginally to 16.412 million in Q1 from 16.410 million in the previous quarter. Dainik Bhaskar (AIR of 14.55 million), Hindustan (12.16 million) and Amar Ujala (8.69 million) followed.

Among the English dailies, the Times of India continues to hold its numero uno position.

TOI has garnered a total AIR of 7.65 million, slightly lower than the trailing quarter report. It is followed by Hindustan Times (AIR of 3.81 million), which is maintaining its strong growth. The Hindu (AIR of 2.23 million) saw a marginal dip.

Economic Times and Mumbai Mirror swapped places from the previous quarter with AIR of 792000 and 777000 respectively.

In the regional dailies, Malayalam Manorama continues to top the chart, though it has experienced a slip in AIR from 99.37 million last quarter to 98.75 million in Q1 2012. The only change in the ranking from the previous quarter is the interchanging of ranks of Gujarat Samachar and Dinakaran with the latter slipping ground.

NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has questioned the deals between the Commonwealth Games 2010 and certain media houses as the Organising Committee (OC) apparently resorted to pick-and-choose policy in the award of contracts worth over Rs 67.3 million.

The CAG in its report has dubbed the process arbitrary and biased. The OC considered proposals in an ad hoc manner and as and when they were received.

The CAG is more severe in its observations on the contract for creating a Games Time website, meant to put out real time information on sporting events, given to HT-Hungama - a consortium comprising Hindustan Times and Hungama. It has lambasted the process of awarding the contract to the consortium and said their work was deficient.
 
The website lacked speed and was not really updated with the latest information, the auditors said.

The website named Korea, Japan, Philippines and the US among the nations participating in the Games - but none of them did - and Commonwealth Games Federation head Mike Fennell went on record, saying that "there is certainly a big problem with the official Games Time website".

The report says a benevolent OC overlooked the non-performance and did not encash the performance guarantee of Rs 2.9 million. A contract in favour of HT-Hungama had no other provisions for penalties case of non-performance, the CAG said.

It said the bidding process was squeezed and completed within two months, leading to several irregularities. Among the three bidders, HT-Hungama‘s documentation was deficient but ignored by the technical committee. It led the CAG to conclude that the process was tailored in HT-Hungama‘s favour.

The contract for production and broadcasting of commercials was given to two news channels, CNN-IBN and NDTV. The CAG said the OC followed an arbitrary approach with no planning for specific channels, time slots and cost benefit analysis.