Bhubaneswar: Leading vernacular daily 'Sambad' secured top rank in Indian Readership Survey (IRS)-2017 retaining its position as the largest circulated daily newspaper in Odisha.

As per IRS-2017 report, 'Sambad' published by Eastern Media Limited (Sambad Group) was figured as the No.1 vernacular daily with 65.94 lakh readers followed by its key media rivals 'Samaj' (56.30 lakh readers), Prameya (36.95 lakh readers) and Dharitri (35.42 lakh readers).

Similarly, 'Samay' was placed at fifth rank in the IRS-2017 with readers 10.97 lakh in Odisha.

The IRS figures showed that ‘Sambad’ continues to cater the news, contents, features and articles targeting the readers of all the groups and regions in Odisha. The newspaper has able to reach around 55 lakh readers as compared to 'Samay' and more than 30 lakh readers than 'Prameya' and 'Dharitri'.

Notably, IRS is the largest readership research study in the world with an annual sample size exceeding 2.56 lakh respondents. The readers above 12 years at age from urban and rural areas of Odisha had participated in the IRS-2017.