PM Modi's Mann Ki Baat Programme Achieves New Milestone: 100 Crore Listeners Ahead Of 100th Episode

Ahead of the 100th episode of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly 'Mann Ki Baat', the programme has achieved the milestone of over 100 crore listeners, according to a survey.

"Nearly ninety six percent of the population is aware of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat," a study by Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Rohtak has found.

"The programme has reached 100 crore people who are aware and have listened to the programme at least once," said the study commissioned by national broadcaster Prasar Bharati.

Prime Minister’s Mann Ki Baat was started on 3 October 2014 and is broadcast on last Sunday of every month at 11 am on entire AIR and DD network.

The 30-minute programme is completing 100 episodes on 30 April 2023. 

The findings of the study were brought out in a press conference by Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi and IIM Rohtak director Dheeraj P Sharma.

Speaking about the findings of the study, Sharma further 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.

The study has tried to gauge the impact Mann Ki Baat has had on the population over the 99 editions so far.

It states that a majority of listeners have become aware of governments working and 73 per cent are optimistic and feel the country is going to progress.

Around 58 per cent of listeners have responded saying their living conditions have improved while a similar number (59 per cent) have reported increased trust in government.

The general sentiment towards the Government can be gauged from the fact that 63 per cent people have said their approach to the Government has become positive and 60 per cent have shown interest in working for nation building as per the survey.

The study distributes the audience across three platforms with 44.7 per cent people tuning in to the programme on a TV while 37.6 per cent access it on a mobile device.

Viewing the programme is favoured over listening to it, as 62 per cent of the respondents between the age of 19 to 34 preferred watching it on a TV.

Hindi grabs a major chunk of listeners of Mann Ki Baat with 65 per cent audience preferring it over any other language while English comes in at second place with 18 per cent.

Speaking about the profile of respondents, IIM Rohtak director Sharma informed that the total sample strength of 10,003 was polled for this study of which 60 per cent were males while 40 per cent were females.

This population was spread over 68 occupations sectors with 64 per cent being from the informal and self-employed sector while students constituted 23 per cent of the studied audience.

The data for the study 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, according to Sharma.

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.

Further, the programme is broadcast by more than 500 broadcast centers of All India Radio.