Category: Viewership

BARC week 43 : No significant changes in regional market

MUMBAI: No significant changes were observed in the regional broadcasting market as per BARC week 43 data. In Bhojpuri space, Bhojpuri Cinema and B4U Bhojpuri exchanged their place at first and second positions and Colors Gujarati Cinema, Colors Gujarati also exchanged their place at the top two positions.

Tamil:

In Tamil space, Sun TV, Star Vijay, Zee Tamil, KTV and Star VIjay Super were the top five Tamil channels in week 43 of BARC India ratings.

		Week 43
1	Sun TV	875912
2	STAR Vijay	429031
3	Zee Tamil	384954
4	KTV	251329
5	STAR Vijay Super	119821
Tamil Nadu/ Puducherry (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individual

Marathi:

The pecking order of top five Marathi channels remained unchanged. Zee Marathi, Colors Marathi, Fakt Marathi, Star Pravah and Zee Talkies were the top five Marathi channels.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Zee Marathi	386006
2	Colors Marathi	167787
3	Fakt Marathi	149314
4	STAR Pravah	106247
5	Zee Talkies	105153
Mah/ Goa (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individual

Gujarati:

Colors Gujarati Cinema , Colors Gujarati, , ABP Asmita TV9 Gujarati and Sandesh News were the top five Gujrati channels in week 43 of BARC India ratings while top two channels exchanged their place at first and second position compared to last week’s data.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Colors Gujarati Cinema	22442
2	Colors Gujarati	18516
3	ABP Asmita	14527
4	TV9 Gujarati	12223
5	Sandesh News	7537
Guj / D&D / DNH (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals

Bangla:

Top five Bangla channels this week were Zee Bangla, Star Jalsha, Jalsha Movies, Colors Bangla and Zee Bangla Cinema.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Zee Bangla	320153
2	STAR Jalsha	279558
3	Jalsha Movies	82610
4	Colors Bangla	62258
5	Zee Bangla Cinema	59548
WB (U+R): NCCS All : 2+ Individuals,

Bhojpuri:

In Bhojpuri space Bhojpuri Cinema and B4U Bhojpuri exchanged their places at first and second positions.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Bhojpuri Cinema	60187
2	B4U Bhojpuri	45233
3	Big Ganga	39879
4	Dabangg	15037
5	Bhojpuri Dhamaka DISHUM	11457
Bihar/Jharkhand (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals

Kannada:

No changes were observed in the pecking order of top five Kannada channels in the week 43 of BARC India ratings.

Week 43: Saturday, 19th October 2019 to Friday, 25th October 2019

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Zee Kannada	536899
2	Colors Kannada	318081
3	Udaya TV	182774
4	Star Suvarna	173124
5	Udaya Movies	143276
Karnataka (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individual

Telugu:

Star Maa Zee Telugu, ETV Telugu, Gemini TV and Star Maa Movies were the top five Telugu channels. No significant changes were observed in this market.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	STAR Maa	725538
2	Zee Telugu	445127
3	ETV Telugu	437274
4	Gemini TV	386329
5	Star Maa Movies	229042
AP/ Telangana (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals

Malayalam:

In Malayalam space Asianet, Mazhavil Manorama, Flowers TV, Surya TV, Zee Keralam were among top 5 channels.

Rank	Channel Name	Weekly Impressions (000s) sum
		Week 43
1	Asianet	272390
2	Mazhavil Manorama	81621
3	Flowers TV	80693
4	Surya TV	60062
5	Zee Keralam	53067

November 5, 2019

Youth genre emerges as top gainer in Chrome DM Week 43

MUMBAI: Youth genre has emerged as the top gainer in week 43 of Chrome Data Analytics and Media data. The genre grew by 1.95 per cent. In this genre, MTV gained the highest OTS with 85.4 per cent in Hsm Excl<1 market.

OTS is the actual census-based percentage connectivity of a channel spread across 81 million homes, as reported by Chrome DM, across analogue cable, digital cable, and DTH.

This week, religious gained second position and grew by 1.45 per cent in Hsm Excl<1 market. In this genre, Aastha channel gained the highest OTS with 98.0 per cent. While Hindi news genre stood in the third position by gaining 0.73 per cent in Hsm Excl<1 market , ABP News secured the highest OTS with 99.4 per cent.

Hindi movies stood in fourth position and grew by 0.48 per cent. B4U Kadak channel gained the highest OTS with 90.4 per cent in the Hindi movies genre. Hindi GEC genre stood on the fifth position and grew by 0.27 per cent in and DD National gained the highest OTS with 99.1 per cent in the HSM Excel <1 market.

October 29, 2019
BARC news 42: English news viewership steady over 3 consecutive weeks

BENGALURU: The combined ratings of the Top 5 English news channels for weeks 40, 41 and 42 of 2019 was 1.092 million, 1,878 million and 1.888 million impressions respectively according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data. The channels in the list during all the three weeks were the same, albeit with a small tweak in ranks. As has become a norm, the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV has topped the ranks for the last twenty weeks in a row between week 23 of 2019 and week 42 of 2019 – the latest week for which BARC’s ratings data is available at the time of writing of this report. During this 20-week period, Times Now has been ranked second for 16 weeks, while pubcaster DD India was ranked second for four weeks. Ranks four and five have been the domains of Network18’s CNN News18 and the India Today Group’s India Today Television. Please refer to the chart below for combined weekly impressions of the Top 5 English news Channels in thousands of impressions followed by the chart of Ranks of Top English news channels.

Ratings in Week 42 (Saturday, 12 October 2019 to Friday, 18 October 2019)

The combined weekly ratings of the top 5 English news channels in week 42 of 2019 increased slightly to 1.888 million weekly impressions from 1.878 million weekly impressions in week 41. Three channels – Republic TV, CNN News18 and India Today Television gained viewership while DD India and Times Now saw viewership decline during week 42 of 2019. The biggest gainer in viewership was CNN News18, while DD India saw the steepest decline during the week under review.

Please refer to the chart below.

At rank one, Republic TV saw a small increase in viewership to 0.581 million weekly impressions in week 42 of 2019 as compared to rank one and 0.579 million weekly impressions in week 41. Times Now climbed back to second rank during the week under review with slightly lower ratings of 0.409 million weekly impressions as compared to third rank and 0.416 million weekly impressions in the previous week. Dropping a place in week 42 of 2019 to third rank was DD India with 0.403 million weekly impressions as compared to second rank and 0.433 million weekly impressions in week 41.

Also climbing up a place to fourth rank was CNN News 18 in week 42 of 2019 with 0.252 million weekly impressions as compared to fifth rank and 0.219 million weekly impressions in week 41. Completing the quintet was India Today Television in week 42 of 2019 with 0.243 million weekly impressions as compared to fourth rank and 0.231 million weekly impressions in the previous week.

October 28, 2019
BARC week 42: Three Zeel channels in across genres on all platforms list once more

BENGALURU: Three channels from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel), two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Star India, and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network and Viacom18 were present in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list of Top 10 Channels Across Genres on All Platforms in week 42 of 2019 (Saturday, 12 October 2019 to Friday, 18 October 2019). Over the past few weeks, only one channel from the Zeel stable was present in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels Across Genres on All Platforms. Zeel’s Kannada GEC Zee Kannada and Telugu GEC Zee Telugu joined its flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV at the cost of Star India’s Star Vijay and Viacom18’s Kids channel Nick.

Six of the channels were Hindi GECs, two were from the Telugu genre and there was one channel each from the Kannada and Tamil genres in the list.

Of the 10 channels in the list, nine were on the pay platform, while the lone FTA entrant was from the Hindi GEC genre from Enterr 10 Television Network’s Dangal that managed to retain its numero uno rank in week 42 of 2019, as it has over the past few weeks.

Two channels – Enterr 10 Television’s free to air (Free or FTA) Hindi GEC Dangal and the Sun Tv Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV having been vying for the top slot in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly lists of Top 10 Channels across genres as mentioned by us earlier. Ultimately, Dangal retook the numero uno mantle in BARC’s Across Genres on all platforms weekly list. In general, Dangal has been the most-watched channel across genres on all platforms also as mentioned by us earlier.

Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Channels Across Genres on Pay Platform

BARC’s weekly list of Top Channels Across Genres on Pay Platform had three channels from Zeel, two channels each from SPN, Star India and Viacom18 and one channel from the Sun Tv Network in week 42 of 2019. There were five channels from the Hindi GEC genre, two channels from the Telugu genre and one channel each from the Kannada, Kids and Tamil genres which made up BARC’s weekly list of Top Channels Across Genres on the Pay Platform in week 42 of 2019

Two channels were replaced in BARC’s weekly list of Top Channels Across Genres on Pay Platform in week 42 of 2019. Zee Kannada and Zee Telugu re-entered the list at the cost of Star Vijay and SPN’s Hindi movies channel Sony Max.

As was the case in the past few weeks, the most watched pay channels were not Hindi GEC – they were Tamil and Telugu GECs at ranks one and two respectively in the list.

Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres

Four channels from the B4U Network, three channels from Enterr 10 Television, two channels from Zeel and one channel from SkyStar made up BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for week 42 of 2019. Four of the channels were from the Hindi Movies genre, three were from the Bhojpuri genre, two were Hindi GECs and one channel was from the Marathi genre in week 42 of 2019. One Sports channel – Star India’s FTA Star Sports First exited BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 42 of 2019, while Enterr 10 Television’s Hindi Movies channel Enterr 10 re-entered the list in week 42 of 2019.

Please refer to the figure below:

October 28, 2019
BARC week 42: Zee Telugu jumps to second position

MUMBAI: In week 42 of BARC India ratings, Zee Telugu has jumped to second position in the Telugu space. Last week the channel was seen at fourth position. Apart from that regional space witnessed no major changes. The pecking order of channels in Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada remained unchanged.

ETV Telugu and Gemini TV moved one step down to third and fourth positions respectively. Star Maa, Zee Telugu, ETV Telugu, Gemini TV and Star Maa Movies were the top five Telugu channels.

Telugu

Top five Bangla channels this week were Zee Bangla, Star Jalsha, Jalsha Movies, Zee Bangla Cinema and Sony Aath.

Bangla

In Bhojpuri space Dabangg and Bhojpuri Dhamaka DISHUM exchanged their places at fourth and fifth positions.

Bhojpuri

Colors Gujarati, Colors Gujarati Cinema, ABP Asmita TV9 Gujarati and VTV News were the top five Gujarati channels in week 42 of BARC India ratings.

Gujarati

No changes were observed in the pecking order of top five Kannada channels in week 42 of BARC India ratings.

Kannada

In the Malayalam space, Zee Keralam and Surya TV exchanged their places at fourth and fifth positions; rest of the channels continued to hold their respective positions.

Malayalam

The pecking order of top five Marathi channels remained unchanged. Zee Marathi, COlors Marathi, Fakt Marathi, Star Pravah and Zee Talkies were the top five Marathi channels.

Marathi

In Tamil space, Sun TV, Star Vijay, Zee Tamil, KTV and Star Vijay Super were the top five Tamil channels in week 42 of BARC India ratings.

Tamil

October 25, 2019
BARC week 42: Sony SAB grabs second position in urban market

MUMBAI: In week 42 of BARC India ratings, Sony SAB grabbed second position in the urban market. The channel has moved up to third position on the pay platform as well. Sony Network's other Hindi GEC Sony Entertainment Television continues to lead in the urban market for the fourth consecutive week. In week 42, Star Plus slipped down to third position in the urban market.

In urban market Sony Entertainment Television, Sony SAB, Star PLus, Colors, Zee TV, Dangal, Star Bharat, &TV, Big Magic and Star Utsav were seen at first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth positions respectively.

Urban

On pay platform Star Plus, Sony Entertainment Television, Sony SAB, Zee TV, Colots, Star Bharat, Dangal, Star Utsav, Sony Pal and Colors Rishtey were the top ten channels.

Pay platform

Dangal, Big Magic, Manoranjan Grand, DD National, DD Bharati, DD Arunprabha, DD uttar Pradesh, DD Rajasthan and DD Madhya Pradesh were the top nine channels on free platform.

Free Platform

Dangal, Big magic, Zee TV, Star Plus, Sony SAB, Sony Entertainment Television, Colors, Star Bharat, Colors Rishtey and Star Utsav were the top ten channels in rural space.

Rural

October 25, 2019
English movie genre becomes top gainer in Chrome DM week 42

MUMBAI: English movie genre has become the top gainer in week 42 of Chrome Data Analytics and Media data. The genre grew by 2.40 per cent. In this genre, Warner Brothers channel gained the highest OTS with 47.2 per cent in 6 metros market.

OTS is the actual census-based percentage connectivity of a channel spread across 81 million homes, as reported by Chrome DM, across analogue cable, digital cable, and DTH.

This week, English GEC gained second position and grew by 1.86 per cent in 6 metros market. In this genre, Comedy Central channel gained the highest OTS with 38.1 per cent. Kids genre stood in the third position by gaining 1.26 per cent in All India 1 lakh+ market. Discovery Kids secured the highest OTS with 88.9 per cent.

Business news stood in fourth position in 6 metros market and grew by 0.62 per cent. CNBC Awaz channel gained the highest OTS with 81.7 per cent. Sports genre stood on the fifth position and grew by 0.24 per cent in All India 1 lakh+ market. In this genre, DD Sports gained the highest OTS with 97.6 per cent.

October 23, 2019
Partho Dasgupta quits BARC India; Sunil Lulla named CEO

MUMBAI: Partho Dasgupta, the first chief executive officer of BARC India, a joint industry company between broadcasters, advertisers and agencies, today announced his plan to relinquish his position and move on.

In a statement he said, “It has been a tremendous journey to setup the worlds largest audience measurement company with the least investment and in the quickest time. Having set it up, expanding the panel and introducing new insight products for news, sports, music and OOH genres, I thought its time to move on and do new things. I have enjoyed setting up new businesses and brands and turning them around both in media and consumer space and its time to explore new domains”. He added “I would like to thank board members and Techcomm members, specially Punit and Shashi for the tremendous support and guidance.”

Sunil Lulla, who brings over 35 years of media and marketing experience and an industry veteran is being appointed as chief executive officer of BARC. “I am delighted to lead BARC as its grows its footprint, in coverage, scope and services, in the fast growing and rapidly evolving TV and digital industry. Things are changing fast and audience measurement has to keep pace with all these. I thank Partho for bringing the company to where it is and wish him a great time ahead.”

BARC India chairman Punit Goenka, said “I welcome Sunil to BARC. He has been a board member before and is familiar. I would also like to thank Partho for steering BARC through tough times, building a great team and establishing the technology architecture that BARC is proud of. Winner of several awards, BARC India is now considered a benchmark by the global measurement community. We wish him the best for his career ahead.” Speaking on the transition, Punit added “Partho and Sunil are working with the teams for a smooth transition in the weeks to come.”

October 22, 2019

BARC week 41: Amazon, Flipkart’s festive season sales make them top two brands

MUMBAI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has released its data for top advertisers and brands for the period between 5 October 2019 and 11 October 2019.

The data reflects top 10 advertiser and brands across genre on Indian television, including OOH screen, (U+R): 2+, Individuals NCCS All, demonstrating ads that were inserted the most in week 41 of 2019.

Top Advertisers:

There have been little changes in the BARC top advertisers’ list in week 40 as compared to the past week. Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd remained the top two performers with 156539 and 102356 ad insertions, respectively.

Amazon Online India Pvt Ltd was replaced from the third position by Procter & Gamble, which ranked sixth the past week, with 44196 insertions.

ITC Ltd climbed up a spot to rank fourth this time as it made 37308 insertions on TV. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd moved up five spots to rank fifth with 36026 insertions.

Rank	Advertiser	Insertions
		Week 41
1	HINDUSTAN LEVER LTD	156539
2	RECKITT BENCKISER (INDIA) LTD	102356
3	PROCTER & GAMBLE	44196
4	ITC LTD	37308
5	GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD	36026
6	BROOKE BOND LIPTON INDIA LTD	30209
7	CADBURYS INDIA LTD	24446
8	PONDS INDIA	24013
9	COLGATE PALMOLIVE INDIA LTD	22747
10	PROCTER & GAMBLE HOME PRODUCTS	21592
*TOP 10 Advertiser Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals.**

Top Brands:

Santoor Sandal and Turmeric climbed up two spots to claim the first rank in the top brands category of BARC week 41 rankings. It had inserted 17007 ads on TV during this period. Second spot was acquired by Trivago, which climbed up from last week’s fifth slot, with 14573 insertions.

Lizol ranked up a spot to sit on third position with 12647 insertions. Dettol antiseptic liquid made fresh entry into the list on fourth position, with 10701 insertions. It was followed by Colgate Dental Cream that had 9662 insertions.

Rank	Brands	Insertions
		Week 41
1	SANTOOR SANDAL AND TURMERIC	17007
2	TRIVAGO	14573
3	LIZOL	12647
4	DETTOL ANTISEPTIC LIQUID	10701
5	COLGATE DENTAL CREAM	9662
6	AMAZON.IN	9658
7	HARPIC BATHROOM CLEANER	9215
8	SURF EXCEL EASY WASH	9204
9	VIVO V17 PRO	9156
10	DETTOL LIQUID SOAP	9054
*TOP 10 Brands Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals.**

October 20, 2019

Most-watched regional news channels

BENGALURU: Regional news is has more per capita consumption in respective languages than Hindi or English news . Further, the consumption of all regional news channels is larger than Hindi news.

Data across three separate periods has been considered in this paper – For the current period, data for a 26-week period, starting week 13 of 2019 until week 39 of 2019, has been used. For the pre-NTO period, data across 23 weeks between week 35 of 2018 and week 5 of 2019 has been considered. For the post-NTO period, due to BARC’s adoption of an earlier method of treatment of landed pages and outliers, data across 17 weeks between week 23 and 39 of 2019 has been considered.To arrive at the per capita viewership or consumption, the author has considered the 17 weeks average (post NTO) and the 23 weeks average (pre NTO) number divided by the respective population of the respective market as per BARC India, Households and Individuals Universe Estimate – 2018 (BARC Population Estimates 2018).

Why these specific periods?

BARC started publication of viewership data in the public domain of news channels in the four South Indian languages in week 1 of 2019. Four additional regional news channels besides the four South Indian languages in the public domain were added in week 35 of 2018. Later, BARC had stopped publishing data in the public domain between weeks 6 and 12 of 2019 to enable viewership to stabilise. Hence the only stable data available in the public domain before the implementation of NTO was between weeks 35 of 2018 and week 5 of 2019, or for a 23-week period. After recommencement of publishing data in week 13 of 2019, BARC reverted to an older method of treating landed changes and outliers in week 23 of 2019.The latest data available at the commencement of writing of this article was week 39 of 2019, hence average viewership for this period of 17 weeks has been considered. For overall viewership trends in the current period, data between weeks 13 and 39 or for 26 weeks (roughly half a year) has been considered.

Markets and Demography

BARC has specified the following demographics of the news channels for the data that it releases in the public domain:

Hindi news: Hindi Speaking Markets, both urban and rural or HSM (U+R): NCCS All: 15+ Individuals.

Telugu news: Andhra Pradesh or AP/Telangana (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals

Kannada news: Karnataka (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals

Tamil news: Tamil Nadu/Puducherry (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals

Malayalam news: Kerala (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals

Oriya news: Odisha (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals.

Assamese news: Assam / North East / Sikkim(U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals.

Bangla news: West Bengal or WB (U+R): NCCS All : 2+ Individuals,

Marathi news: Mah/ Goa (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals.

English news: All India (U+R): NCCS AB: Males 22+ Individuals.

BARC considers HSM or Hindi Speaking Market as All India without the four South Indian markets. Hence, the author has subtracted the NCCS 15+ population of the four South Indian markets from the All India NCCS 15+ population to arrive at the HSM 15+ population numbers. In the case of per capita consumption for South India, the author has taken the sum of average weekly impressions of the top 5 channels for each language and then added the four sums to arrive at the total average weekly impressions for South India, this total average has then been divided by the 2+ population figures for each of the four languages/six states as per BARC Population Estimates 2018. In the case of English news, the author has calculated the NCCS 22+ Males population by extrapolating the overall male and female ratio and the ratio of the 22+ individuals with the all India population with the sum of BARC numbers for NCCS A 22+ and NCCS B 22+. To arrive at the per capita consumption of news on the top 5 channels for the country, the 23 week average of the 10 languages has been divided by the 2+ population of India as per the above mentioned BARC Universe estimates. Individual HSM (R) and HSM (U) viewership numbers have not been considered to arrive at the per capita consumption of news on the top 5 channels for the country.

Per Capita news Consumption post and pre implementation of NTO

Please refer to the chart below for per capita news consumption of the top 5 channels of each language.

Current Status

The charts below covers data between weeks 13 and 39 of 2019, the last week for which BARC data was available at the time of writing of this report. This report covers approximately six months of calendar year 2019. BARC had stopped publication of data in the public domain after week 5 of 2019 to enable ratings to stabilise after the implementation of TRAI’s new tariff order and recommenced publication of the same in week 13 of 2019. Hence, here onward this paper looks at news-watching trends of top 5 news channels across 10 languages.

The unit of viewership measure in all cases in the charts below is thousand weekly impressions. Please refer to the figure below:

As is obvious from the chart above, viewership of the top 5 regional news channels of 8 languages is far higher, by an average of about 46.33 percent,than the viewership of Hindi news channels in HSM (U+R) during the 26 weeks under review).

Most-watched regional news channels

Here below is a chart showing the viewership data for news channels in the eight languages mentioned above in their respective markets. As is obvious, Kannada news has a much bigger viewership even in absolute numbers than other languages.

Most-watched Assamese news channels

Five channels were present in BARC’s weekly list of Top 5 Assamese news channels during all the weeks between weeks 13 and 39 of 2019. News Live was the most-watched Assamese news channel by far.

Most-watched Bangla news channels

There were five channels that have consistently appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Bangla news channels during all the 26 weeks under review in this paper. As is obvious, ABP Ananda was the most-watched Bengali news channel, followed by Zee 24 Ghanta. Please refer to the figure below:

Most-watched Kannada news channels

BARCs weekly lists of Top 5 Kannada news channels between weeks 13 and 39 also had five channels that were consistently present during the entire period. TV9 Kannada was by far the most-watched Kannada news channel followed by Public TV during the period under consideration in this paper. Please refer to the figure below

Most-watched Malayalam news channels

Seven channels, each of them at least once, appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Malayalam news channels during the period under consideration. Of these 7, three have consistently appeared in the Malayalam news channels lists during all the 26 weeks under review. These three channels were – Asianet News, which is by far the most-watched Malayalam news channel, followed by Manorama News and Mathrubhumi News. Please refer to the chart below:

Most-watched Marathi news channels

In the case of Marathi news also, five channels consistently appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Marathi news channels. ABP Majha was the most-watched Marathi news Channel. During 15 of the 23 weeks under consideration, TV9 was the second most-watched Marathi news channel. However, since week 32 of 2019, Saam TV has been ranked second in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Marathi news channels. Please refer to the chart below.

Most-watched Oriya news channels

Seven channels, each of them at least once, appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Oriya news channels during the period under consideration. Of these 7, three have consistently appeared in BARC’s weekly Oriya news channels lists during all the 26 weeks under review. They are OTV, which was the most-watched Oriya news channel, followed News7 and Kanak News at second and third place respectively. Please refer to the figure below:

Most-watched Tamil news channels

Six channels appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Tamil news channels at least once. Three of these channels have consistently appeared during all the 26 weeks under consideration in BARC’s Top Tamil news channels list. Polimer News was the most-watched Tamil news channel by far and was followed by Thanthi TV and Puthiya Thalaimurai at second and third place respectively. Please refer to the figure below:

Most-watched Telugu news channels

Six channels appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 Telugu news channels at least once between weeks 13 and 39 of 2019. Three of these channels have consistently appeared during all the 26 weeks under consideration in BARC’s Top Telugu news channels list. TV9 Telugu was the most-watched Telugu news channel during the 26 weeks under consideration in this paper. NTV news was at second place followed by V6 news at third place. Please refer to the chart below:

Closing Remarks

Media groups and news networks such as the ABP Group and Associated Broadcasting Company Private Limited (TV9) have channels in more than one language that are among the Top 5 channels in that market or language. Many of them have news channels in other languages/markets also.

Television news is an important genre. India has multiple languages and small and big networks, independent channels – television broadcasters to be more precise – cater to viewers’ tastes by beaming in content that they prefer. News is an important genre, and there are news channels galore across languages – some of them have even been crowned as ‘views’ channels. The FICCI M&E 2019 report says that 43 percent of the 885 private TV channels in India were ‘news channels’. The FICCI report says that news, which commands a 7 percent share of viewership garnered a disproportionately high share of advertising volumes. The lion’s share totaling 77 percent of the viewership was taken by escapism – or movies and GECs. Yet, Hindi regional news was amongst the top 10 genres and had 5 percent of the advertisement share in terms of volumes of advertisements or insertions.The report also says that contrary to popular perception, TV viewership is high amongst youth (15-30 years) even in the digital age. Youth contribute 32 percent to total viewership with a 30 percent and 32 percent split between urban and rural India.

An earlier BARC report says that news events cannot escape the lure of drama. And drama includes elections and election results, deaths of celebrities, high court and supreme court verdicts on celebrities and sensitive issues, major changes such as demonetisation announced by the central government, major public holidays such as Independence and Republic days, important events such as the Uri surgical strikes that pertain to terrorist attacks and counter-attacks, etc. Data for election results week – week 21 of 2019, could not be considered in this paper for analysis of per capita consumption because of the change in BARC’s methodology two weeks after election results week. However, week 21 data has been considered in other parts of the report.

October 19, 2019