Nearly 96 percent of the population is aware of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat, and it has reached at least 100 crore people so far, a survey conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak revealed on Monday. The survey was conducted ahead of the 100th episode of the popular show, which is scheduled to be aired on April 25th, 2023.
Addressing the media, IIM Rohtak Director Dheeraj P Sharma said that "23 crore people tune in to the programme regularly while another 41 crore constitute an occasional audience that has the scope of being converted into a regular audience."
As per the study which delves into the reasons behind the popularity of the programme, the most liked characteristics are, "powerful and decisive leadership" that speaks to establish an "emotional connect with the audience". PM is "knowledgeable" and "have sympathetic and empathetic approach". He "directly engages with the citizens" and "guides and supports them".
It further revealed that the programme has encouraged the listeners to be aware of the government's working and 73 percent are optimistic and feel the country is going to progress. 58 percent of listeners believe that their living conditions have improved while 59 percent have reported increased trust in government. Besides, 63 percent have said their approach to the government has become positive and 60 percent have shown interest in working for nation building as per the survey.
The study revealed that viewing the programme is favoured over listening to it. To a question on how they listened or watched the programme, 62 percent of the respondents between the age of 19 to 34 said that they preferred watching it on a TV.
Altogether, 44.7 percent people tune in to the programme on a TV while 37.6 percent access it on a mobile device.
Speaking of the language, the finding revealed that 65 percent audience prefer watching or listening the programme in Hindi over any other language while 18 percent preferred English as the language.
According to Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO, Prasar Bharati, the survey was done to get more well-rounded feedback in terms of the overall programme and not for particular episodes only. "While digital sentiment on Mann Ki Baat is readily available, the same is not in the case with traditional media due to certain limitations," he said.
Last year, in April 2022, Prasar Bharati, India's state-owned public broadcaster, had reportedly tasked the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Rohtak to track the listenership and popularity of PM Modi's monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat".
Prasar Bharati, India's state-owned public broadcaster, had reportedly tasked the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Rohtak with the responsibility in April 2022, in a move to gauge the listenership and popularity of PM Modi's monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat".
The total sample strength of 10,003 was polled for this study of which 60 percent were males while 40 percent were females. This population was spread over 68 occupation sectors with 64 percent being from the informal and self-employed sector while students constituted 23 percent of the studied audience, the IIM Director informed.
Data was collected from North, South, East, and West regions of India using snowball sampling with approximately 2,500 responses per zone, through a psychometrically purified survey instrument, he added.
Prasar Bharti CEO Gaurav Dwivedi said that Mann ki Baat is being broadcast by more than 500 broadcast centers of All India Radio.
"Apart from 22 Indian languages and 29 dialects, Mann Ki Baat is broadcast in 11 Foreign languages excluding English namely, French, Chinese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Burmese, Baluchi, Arabic, Pashtu, Persian, Dari and Swahili," Dwivedi added.
(Edited by : Pradeep John)
