Measurement of Readership 

Readership of publications is traditionally ascertained using the Masthead Method. The method, which has been used in successive National Readership Surveys, uses a Masthead Booklet to aid respondents recall of exposure to various publications. The booklet contains black and white photographic reproductions of mastheads of newspapers and magazines covered in the survey.

The Average Issue Readership (AIR) of a publication is estimated by determining the number who have read an issue within a specified time interval, which is equal to the publishing interval of the publication. This is known as Recent Reading Method. Thus, for a daily, the estimated number of readers is equal to the number that has looked at any issue of that daily 'yesterday'. Similarly, the time interval for a weekly publication is the 'last 7 days', for a fortnightly publication it is the 'last 15 days' while, for a monthly publication it is the 'last 30 days'.

In Readership Surveys, the estimation of 'average issue readership' for both Urban and Rural India is based on the Recent Reading Method.