Category: Viewership

Republic TV continues to lead English News viewership

BENGALURU: There is rarely any middle ground as far as Republic TV Editor Arnab Goswami is concerned. Either you like him or you hate him. On his ‘debates’, which sometimes include long monologues by Goswami who is supposed moderator of the ‘debates’ either you agree with him or you disagree with him. But then this is what India seems to like – his completely nationalistic brouhaha, his often brutal coercions that often fail to impress the coerced, his interpretations of the statusco, his interruptions – this is what sets him a class apart – no other news anchor on Indian News Television has ever gained the admiration, the hatred, the fame, the popularity and the notoriety that Goswami has. And that is what has won his English Television News channel the eyeballs, the sticky eyeballs that make it the most watched Indian English Television News channel in the country in terms of weekly impressions. Except for a handful of exceptional weeks, Republic TV has retained leadership of the genre, right from the week that it launched about 3 years ago on 6 May 2017 – right in the middle of an ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season when a majority of Indians are glued to the channels that air the cricketing bonanza.

Earlier, Broadcast Audience Research Council of India limited publishing data for English News channels to NCCS Males 22+ Individual for the Top 5 English News channels in the public domain. Of late the ratings agency has started reporting data for ratings for Top 5 English News channels on a demographic of All India (U+R): NCCS All : 2+ Individuals. In either case, as mentioned above, Republic TV has been the genre leader.

Please refer to the chart below. Only 3 channels have been present in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English News channels during the first 22 weeks of 2020. In alphabetical order, they are India Today Television, Republic TV and Times Now. Since Week 17 of 2020, Network18’s English News CNN News18 has also been present in BARC’s Weekly lists of Top 5 English News Channels. As a matter fact, during the first 22 weeks of 2020, CNN News18 was absent from BARC’s weekly top 5 English News channels only once – in Week 15 of 2020.

Top 5 English News Channels in Week 22 of 2020

Overall, the combined weekly impressions of BARC’s list of Top English News Channels increased 4.2 percent as compared to the previous week. Only one channel changed in BARC’s weekly list of Top 5 English News channels in Week 22 of 2020 (Saturday, 30 May 2020 to Friday, 5 June 2020, week or period under review) vis-à-vis the previous week. Pubcaster Doordarshan’s DD India exited the list and was replaced by the Radhika and Pronnoy Roy headed group’s NDTV 24×7 at rank 5 which made its sixth entrance into the list during the first 22 weeks of 2020.

The first four channels in the list retained their ranks in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Republic TV at first rank saw its weekly impressions increase to 9.6 percent to 4.034 billion in Week 22 of 2020 from 3.682 billion in Week 21. At second rank, Times now saw 17.9 growth to 3.208 billion weekly impressions in the week under review from 2.722 billion impressions in Week 21 of 2020.

CNN News18 at third rank saw an 8.3 percent decline to 1.955 billion weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 from 2.131 billion weekly impressions in the previous week. India Today Television at rank 4 saw an increase of 0.3 percent to 1.582 billion weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 from 1.578 billion weekly impressions in the previous week. NDTV 24×7 entered BARC’s weekly list of Top 5 English News Channels in Week 22 of 2020 with 0.839 billion weekly impressions. DD India at rank 5 in Week 21 of 2020 had garnered 1.032 billion weekly impressions.

June 15, 2020
BARC week 22: Star Plus continues to hold position in urban market and pay platform

MUMBAI: STAR PLUS tops the chart on the pay platform and in the urban market in Week 22 of 2020 (Saturday, 30 May 2020 to Friday, 5 June 2020) of Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data. However, Star Plus slips down to third position in the rural market. Dangal which is on seventh position on the pay platform does better with gaining third spot in the urban market and top spot in the rural market.

On pay platform STAR PLUS, SONY SAB, STAR Utsav, Colors, Sony Entertainment Television, Sony Pal, Dangal, DD National, Zee TV, and STAR Bharat were the top ten channels in the week 22 of BARC India ratings.

Pay Platform

In the urban market top ten channels were STAR Plus, Sony SAB, Dangal, Colors, STAR Utsav, Sony Entertainment Television, DD National, Sony Pal, Big Magic and &TV in week 22 of BARC India ratings.

Urban

Dangal, Big Magic, STAR PLUS, SONY SAB, DD National, STAR Utsav, Sony Pal, Zee Anmol, Colors, Sony Entertainment Television were the top ten channels in the rural market in week 22 of BARC ratings.

Rural

On the free platform Dangal, Big Magic, DD National, DD Bharti, Manoranjan Grand, DD Retro, DD Uttar Pradesh, DD Madhya Pradesh, DD Rajasthan, DD Prabha were the top ten channels in week 22 of BARC ratings.

Free Platform

June 13, 2020
Minor changes in Across Genres lists as GECs continue to lose ratings

BENGALURU: Overall television consumption increased slightly in Week 22 of 2020 (Saturday, 30 May 2020 to Friday, 5 June 2020, week or period under review) according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data as compared to the previous week (Week 21 of 2020). BARC data reveals that TV consumption in terms of weekly impressions increased to 16.4 billion during the week under review from 16.3 billion in the previous week. However, on analysis of BARC data for top 10 or top 5 channels of various genres/languages in the public domain, it seems that GECs’ continued to lose viewership, if not the GEC genre across languages, then at least the top 5 or 10 GEC channels of most languages had lower consumption in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to Week 21. The top 10 Hindi GECs’ on all platforms, on the Pay and Free Platforms as well as in Urban and Rural India had lower weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the preceding week. The Top 5 Hindi Movies channels in Urban and Rural India saw viewership increase slightly, as did Hindi Movies on the Pay platform. The Top 5 Hindi Movies channels on the Free Platform saw a dip in viewership during the week under review as compared to the previous week.

News channels and movies channels seemed to be the biggest gainers, and of course, in the case of the Top 5 Kannada channels for which production of new content had begun on June 1, 2020 also gained viewership. It must be noted that the Top 5 News Channels ofthree South Indian languages -Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu had lower weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Hindi and English News channels along with Assamese, Bangla, Oriya and Tamil News channels garnered higher weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. The 2 Hindi Business News channels saw a 25 percent increase in weekly impressions in Week 22 as compared to Week 21 of 2020, while the 3 English Business News channels which have a lower consumption than the 2 Hindi Business News channels saw Weekly Impressions in Week 22 decline 17 percent as compared to Week 21 of 2020.

Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres declined by 2.9 percent in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the ten channels in the list were the same as in the previous week with some changes in the rankings.

One of the most significant changes was the Sun TV Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV slipping to third place with an 8.2 percent decline in weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 from rank 2 in the previous week. Despite a 2.5 percent decline in weekly ratings from the previous week, Star India’s flagship Hindi GEC Star Plus replaced Sun TV at second rank in Week 22 of 2020.

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres comprised of four Hindi GECs’, three Hindi Movies channels and one channel each from the Kids, Tamil and Telugu genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were three channels from Star India, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from, Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network, Viacom18. While Dangal is available on both the pay TV and FTA platforms, Zeel’s acquired Hindi GEC Big Magic is FTA. The other eight channels were Pay TV. It must be noted that Dangal, Sony SAB and Zee Cinemagarnered higher weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 than in week 21, despite the lower combined ratings of the Top 10 channels in the list.
Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres declined 3.4 percent in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Nine of the ten channels in the list in the week under review were the same as in Week 21 of 2020 with some changes in the ranks. One channel – Viacom18’s flagship Hindi GEC Colors exited BARC’s Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres list in Week 22 of 2020 an was replaced by Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav at tenth place.

There were three channels each from the Hindi GECs’ and Hindi Movies genres, two Telugu channels and one channel each from the Kids and Tamil genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 19 of 2020. There were four channels from Star India, two channels each from SPN and the Sun Tv Network and one channel each from Viacom18 and Zeel in the list. While 8 of the channels in the list in Week 22 of 2020 from the previous week’s list had lower weekly impressions, Zeel’s Hindi Movies channels Zee Cinema had higher weekly impressions in the week under review as compared to the previous week.

Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels on Across Genres

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres shows that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels in Week 22 of 2020 were 4.3 percent lower than in Week 21. Nine of the 10 channels in the list in Week 22 of 2020 were the same as in week 21 with some shuffling in the ranks.Zeel’s Youth channels Zing exited the list in Week 22 of 2020 and was replaced by Viacom18’ Hindi Movies channel Rishtey Cineplex.

There were four channels from the Hindi Movies genre and three channels each from the Bhojpuri and Hindi GEC genresin BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for Week 22 of 2020, There were three channels each from Zeel and Enterr 10 Television, two channels from B4U Network and one channel each from the pubcaster network Doordarshan or DD and Viacom18 during the period under review.

Please refer to the chart below:

June 12, 2020
Same channels in Across Genres, but TV viewership continues to decline

BENGALURU: Indian television viewership seems to be declining after the lofty peaks of the early COVID2019 (COVID-19) Lockdown as India enters Unlock 1.0, when compared to Week 4 of 2020. The drop in television consumption continued in Week 21 of 2020 (Saturday, 23 May 2020 to Friday, 29 May 2020, week or period under review) with viewership declining to 16.3 billion impressions during the week under review. However, overall television consumption in terms of impressions was still 12.4 percent more in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to Week 4 of 2020 which had garnered 14.5 billion impressions.

Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) and Nielsen have set the average viewership data between Weeks 2 and 4 of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during COVID-19 weeks. While the lockdown in India commenced on 25 March 2020, which was midweek of Week 12 of 2020, BARC-Nielsen COVID-19 reports are available for weeks between Weeks 11 and 20 of 2020 at the time of writing of this paper. The author has considered Week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here.

As is obvious from the chart below, viewership has been dropping over the past few weeks.

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres declined by 2.2 percent in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the ten channels in the list were the same as in the previous week with some changes in the rankings.

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres comprised of four Hindi GECs’, three Hindi Movies channels and one channel each from the Kids, Tamil and Telugu genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were three channels from Star India, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN)and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from, Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network, Viacom18. While Dangal is available on both the pay TV and FTA platforms, Zeel’s acquired Hindi GEC Big Magic is FTA. The other eight channels were Pay TV. It must be noted that Dangaland Sony SAB had higher impressions in Week 21 of 2020 than in week 20, despite the lower combined ratings of the Top 10 channels in the list.
Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres declined 3.8 percent in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the channels in the list in the week under review were the same as in Week 20 of 2020 with some changes in the ranks.

There were three channels each from the Hindi GECs’ and Hindi Movies genre, two Telugu channels and one channel each from the Kids and Tamil genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 19 of 2020. There were three channels from Star India, two channels each from SPN, the Sun Tv Network and Viacom18 one channel from Zeel in the list.
Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels on Across Genres

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres shows that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels in Week 21 of 2020 were1.7 percent lower than in Week 20. All the channels in the list in Week 21 were the same as in week 20 with some shuffling in the ranks.

There were three channels each from the Bhojpuri, Hindi GEC and Hindi Movies genres, and there was one Youth channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for Week 21 of 2020, There were four channels from Zeel, three channels from Enterr 10 Television, two channels from B4U Network and one channel from the pubcaster network Doordarshan or DD during the period under review.

Please refer to the chart below:

June 8, 2020
Maharashtra allows shooting of TV serials and films

MUMBAI: Shooting of films and television serials will soon resume in Maharashtra after the state government on Sunday gave the green signal to the industry.

The state government has issued ‘guiding principles to restart media and entertainment industry in Maharashtra.’ They contain elaborate guidelines and instructions to be followed during the course of shooting of films, TV/OTT series.

The department of cultural affairs has issued the ruling in this regard. Producers can now carry out pre- and post-production activities in accordance with the guidelines stipulated by the government.

The government decision has energized the industry which has been remaining dormant ever since the lockdown was imposed.

An elated Indian Film & TV Producers Council chairman (TV division) J Majethia told Indiantelevision.com that all the producers will meet on Monday and decide the next course of action.

He said that this came so fast within a few days of the industry stakeholders’ approaching the state government for a favourable decision.

“Producers will meet and discuss tomorrow. Then we will have to discuss with broadcasters, because they have to apply for permission. Once we start, we cannot stop as we have to have a bank of episodes as per schedules. We need two or three days to decide on when to resume shooting,” said Majethia.

“On behalf of the industry, we cannot thank chief minister Uddhav Thackeray enough. He has been very supportive in all our efforts. The day when we met, he was sounding very positive. He asked us to submit SOPs and everything worked so fast,” he said.

“If we want to shoot in Mumbai Film City or outside Mumbai, the respective district collector will give permission,” he added.

Last week, the chief minister interacted with the stakeholders from the industry via zoom conferencing call and assured them all support to resume production activities in the state.

May 31, 2020
Television ad volumes see uptick during past two weeks

NEW DELHI: After a momentary dip in week 18, the past two weeks saw a rise in ad volumes on television, reveals the ninth edition of BARC-Nielsen ‘Crisis Consumption on TV and smartphones’ report, launched Friday. However, they still remained 23 per cent lower than pre-Covid period and 35 per cent lesser than the peak performance of week 12.

The advertiser count on television also showed an uptick of three per cent in week 20, while the brand variants noticed a 14 per cent increase as compared to the last week. The total advertiser count on TV became 1370, and brand/variants were 2106 in number. A few examples of new advertisers in week 20 include Vivo, Cadbury, Kia Motors, Faasos, Bajaj, Sharp India, Hoichoi, and Apple. A few examples of new brands in week 20 include Vivo V19, Kia Seltos, Cadbury’s 5 Star, Nivea Soft, Apple iPhoneSE.

Also, inventory levels of categories present during summer also raised in the last two weeks, with soft drinks and air coolers raising their inventories the most.

If we look genre-wise, impressive growth has been witnessed in the news section over the past two weeks, with FCT growing from 70.7 lakh in week 18 to 79.6 lakh in week 20. GEC volumes have flattened from week 14 onwards; however, there has been a growth in the past two weeks.

However, both the music and movies channels have been enjoying an uptick in the last two weeks.

May 30, 2020
English genre sees max growth across prime time and non-prime time

MUMBAI: From GEC to movies and news to music, the English language category has reported an exceptional growth across the genres in week 20, as per the ninth edition of a joint report by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India and Nielsen on crisis consumption.

Both prime time and non-prime time in all the four major genres, English has done way better than Hindi and other regional languages, mentions the BARC-Nielsen report.

News and movie genres have shown the highest growth in terms of viewership among other genres in the English category. Movies grew by 90 percent in non prime time and 41 per cent in prime time, while the news genre advanced by 74 per cent in non prime time and 65 per cent in prime time.

May 29, 2020
Advertising volume grows by 16 per cent in last two weeks

MUMBAI: Advertising volume grew during the last two weeks by 16 per cent, according to a ninth edition of a joint report by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India and Nielsen on crisis consumption.

The report also states that the ad volume has, however, fallen by 23 per cent in the current week as compared to the pre-Covid2019 period.

Most of the categories have increased volume of advertising levels in the last two weeks, of which soft drinks and coolers have increased the most, thanks to the heat wave in the country, the report points out.

There has been a rise of 3 per cent in advertiser count in week 20, whereas the brands and variants count has gone up by 5 per cent in the same week.

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May 29, 2020
TV producers haunted by rental costs

MUMBAI: The pandemic may have halted production activities, but the costs are mounting, especially the rent, according to ANM Global managing partner Nidhish Mehrotra.

He was speaking at a virtual round table conference organised by indiantelevision.com that included some of the television eminent producers who came together to discuss the challenges faced by TV producers during the Covid2019 pandemic.

"I possibly see that currently and post Covid2019, the major concern is of rentals. We are commissioned by the channel and then we produce the show and bring the artists and crew together. We have the privity of contract with broadcasters and artists and crew have the privity of contract with producers. Most of the producers hire studios on rental; very few producers own their intellectual properties (IPs). Rentals are expensive at Rs 15 to 25 lakh per month,” he said.

He added that nobody had thought of adding pandemic as force majeure clause in the contract globally. If your insurance talks about a pandemic in your contract then you're covered, but if it doesn't mention it, then you are not eligible for the same. And to include force majeure in your insurance cover, one needs to pay a premium price.

He mentioned that a couple of lawyers have filed a petition in the supreme court saying that their earning has gone for a toss and that they are unable to pay rentals. But the apex court has denied any intervention in this matter. The supreme court in the hearing clarified that it cannot give any favours to the lawyers as every organisation would come to them. There are people in India whose livelihood is completely dependent on real estate and rentals.

The order, passed on 30 April 2020, stated that it depends on the understanding between the licensor and the licensee.

Mehrotra suggested that if the licensee feels that the licensor can terminate the contract or may reduce the rental fee by 50 per cent, it is essential to immediately make the contract.

“Producers are left with no option, either they can pay the rent or they cannot. You can suspend or waive off only when it is written in your contract otherwise you will have to pay the rent,” he concluded.

May 26, 2020
Dangal continues on top across genres as TV consumption drops

BENGALURU: Television consumption continued to drop in week 19 of 2020 (Saturday, 9 May 2020 to Friday, 15 May 2020, week or period under review), according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for Top 10 channels on all platforms across genres. However, overall television consumption in terms of impressions was still 24.1 percent more in Week 19 of 2020 as compared to week 4 of 2020. Viewership in terms of billion impressions in week 19 of 2020 was 18 as compared to 14.5 in week 4 of 2020.

BARC and Nielsen have set the average viewership data between weeks 2 and 4 of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during COVID-19 (Covid2019) weeks. While the lockdown in India commenced on 25 March 2020, which was midweek of Week 12 of 2020, BARC-Nielsen COVID-19 reports are available for weeks between Weeks 11 and 18 of 2020 at the time of writing of this paper. The author has considered week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here.

As is obvious from the chart below, viewership has been dropping over the past few weeks.

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres declined by 4.5 percent in week 19 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Nine of the ten channels in the list were the same as in the previous week. pubcaster network’s flagship Hindi GEC DD National exited the list to be replaced by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) Hindi Movies channel Zee Cinema.

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genrescomprised of five Hindi GECs’, two Hindi Movies channels and one channel each from the Kids, Tamil and Telugu genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN), Star India and Zeeland one channel each from DD, Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network, Viacom18. While DD Bharti and Dangal are available on both the pay TV and FTA platforms, Zeel’s acquired Hindi GEC Big Magic is FTA. The other seven channels were Pay TV. It must be noted that Dangal, Star Plus, Big Magic, Star Maa and Sony Max had higher impressions in Week 19 of 2020 than in week 18, despite the lower combined ratings of the Top 10 channels in the list.

Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres declined 3.5 percent in Week 19 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Nine of the channels in the list in the week under review were the same as in Week 19 of 2020. Here also, DD National exited the list and was replaced by the Sun Tv Network’s Telugu GEC Gemini.

There were three channels each from the Hindi GECs’ and Hindi movies genre, two Telugu channels and one channel each from the kids and Tamil genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 19 of 2020. There were three channels from Star India, two channels each from SPN and the Sun TV Network one channel each from the DD, Viacom18 and Zeel in the list.

Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels on Across Genres

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres shows that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels in Week 19 of 2020 was 8 per cent lower than in Week 19. All the channels in the list in Week 19 were the same as in week 18 with some shuffling in the ranks.

Four of the channels were Hindi GEC; there were three Hindi movies channels, two were Bhojpuri channels and there was one youth channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for Week 18 of 2020, There were three channels each from Enterr 10 Television and Zeel and two channels each from DD and B4U Network during the period under review.

Please refer to the chart below:

May 25, 2020