ITV

Tag: across genres

  • IPL 13 grows and grabs television viewership

    IPL 13 grows and grabs television viewership

    BENGALURU: Live telecast of the Indian Premier League (IPL) must seem an abomination for competitors’ networks. Year in and year out, the period during which the cricketing bonanza is played, all genres and competing sports networks have seen viewership numbers dip as Indians tuned into the channels of the network that aired the event live – the network being Star India in this edition of IPL or IPL 2020 or IPL13 as it is known. The Covid2019 pandemic delayed IPL by around five to six months. In a normal year, IPL commences around the end of March or at the beginning of April every year and runs for about six weeks or so. The event this year clashes with flagship programmes such as the twelfth season of Hindi Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Bollywood doyen Amitabh Bachchan and with the initial weeks of the Salman Khan hosted fourteenth edition of the Hindi Bigg Boss. This paper comes with a caveat – the conclusions in it are based on BARC weekly data of the top 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels/programmes of various genres in different languages/platfroms in the public domain.

    Week 38 of 2020 (Saturday,19 September 2020 to Friday, 25 September 2020, week or period under review) saw television viewership climb 2.4 percent to 17.0 billion weekly impressions from 16.5 billion weekly impressions reported for the previous week according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data published in the public domain. Viewership in week 38 of 2020 was 15.1 percent higher than the pre-Covid2019 average of 14.77 billion weekly impressions. Ratings watchdogs BARC and Nielsen have standardized the average data for weeks 02 and 04 2020 as the pre-Covid2019 average. As is obvious from the figure below, television viewership had started declining from week 34 of 2020. IPL 13 week saw viewership growth. 

    BARC weekly list of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across genres saw Star Sports 1 Hindi catupult into it, and that too at rank 1.  Though the combined ratings of the Top 10 Channels in this list grew 5.8 percent to 8,322.475 billion weekly impressions in week 38 of 2020 from 7,863.577 billion weekly impressions in the previous week, seven of the channels in the list saw a decline in viewership. Two channels exited the list in week 38 of 2020. Star Sports 1 Hindi entered the list as mentioned above at rank 1 with 1,247.407 billion weekly impressions. It must be noted that Star India is airing IPL 13 on Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 HD, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 2 HD, Star Sports 1 Hindi and Star Sports 1 Hindi HD TV channels as well as live streaming on the Disney+ Hotstar digital platform.

    Read more news on IPL

    Analysis of BARC data in the public domain of the top 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels of various genres in different languages/platfroms for week 38 of 2020 reveals that the top channale of all major genres such as GECs’, news, movies and kids saw ratings dip. According to BARC-Nielsen reports these four genres garnered around 90 percent of television viewership. BARC data shows that combined impressions data for the Top 5 Sports channels grew 8.6 times to 1,734.956 billion weekly impressions in week 38 of 2020 from 201.549 billion weekly impressions in the previous week. It is quite obvious that the sports genre has helped television viewership grow, while at the same time has eaten into viewership of other genres/sub-genres across platforms – be they pay or free or combined free and pay.

    Top 10 Channels on All Platforms, Pay Platform and Free Platform Across Genres

    The Star India Network pulled viewership eyeballs with five channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Plaform Across Genres in week 38 of 2020. There were two channels from Sony Pictures Network (SPN) and one channel each from Enterr10 Television, Sun Tv Network and Zee Entertainment Enterrpises Limited (Zeel) besides those of Star India in the top 10 weekly list for the week under review.Two channels, Viacom18’s Hindi GEC Colors Rishtey and Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV exited the list and were replaced by Star Sports 1 Hindi and Star India’s flagship Tamil GEC Star Vijay. There were six Hindi GEC channels, two Tamil channels and one channel each from the sports and the Telugu genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres.

    BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres also was dominated by Star India channels – there were four of them. Besides, there were 3 channels from Zeel and one channel each from SPN, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18. While the combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres increased 10 percent to 7,285.986 billion weekly impressions in week 38 of 2020 from 6,624.357 billion weekly impressions in week 37 of 2020, five of the channels saw week-on-week (w-o-w) decline in weekly impressions. One channel – Star India’s flagship Bangla channel Star Jalsha exited the list in week 38 of 2020 and was replaced by Star Sports 1 Hindi. There were four Hindi GECs’, three Tamil channels, two Telugu channels and one Sports channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay channels Across Genres.

    BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 38 of 2020 had the same line up of channels in the same order as in the previous week. However, the combined weekly impressions of the 10 channels in week 38 of 2020 declined 1.5 per cent to 3,535.728 billion weekly impressions from 3,588.256 billion weekly impressions in week 37. Six of the channels in the list saw viewership decline, while four saw viewership increase. Six of the channels were Hindi GECs’ while four were Hindi Movies channels. There were three channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18, and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr10 Television, Goldmine Telefilms, Star India and SPN in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 38 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below:

  • Non-Hindi channels continue to dominate top 10 pay channels across genres

    Non-Hindi channels continue to dominate top 10 pay channels across genres

    BENGALURU: As the progress in the Sushant Singh Rajput case seemingly tapered off, the news genre lost some of its sheen in terms of weekly impressions in Week 37 of 2020 (Saturday 12 Sep 2020 to Friday 18 Sep 2020, week or period under review). Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for top five Hindi, English, Assamese, Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu channels reveals that the top news channels lost viewership in Week 37 of 2020 as compared to the previous week (Week 36 of 2020). At the same time, overall television viewership in Week 37 of 2020 at 16.6 billion weekly impressions was just a fraction higher than the 16.5 billion weekly impressions in Week 36. BARC data for the top 10 Hindi GEC channels, top four Assamese channels and top five Bangla, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu channels for the week under review shows that viewership of most of these genre/sub-genres in respective platforms and markets increased to contribute to the small increase in overall viewership. The top five channels of English entertainment channels, infotainment, lifestyle, English & Hindi movies, music, sports and top four youth channels also saw viewership in terms of weekly impressions grow.

    Top 10 Channels on All Platforms, Pay Platform and Free Platform Across Genres

    BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels on all platforms across genres saw the combined weekly impressions in Week 37 of 2020 increase as compared to the previous week. Nine of the channels in the All Platforms channels list were the same with a slight shuffling of ranks as in the previous week. One Telugu channel from the Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zeel) stable exited the list in week 37 of 2020 to be replaced by its sister channel and Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV at rank 10. There were eight Hindi GECs and one channel each from the Tamil and the Telugu genres in the list. There were three channels from Star India, two channels from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zeel and one channel each from Enterr10 Television, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18 in BARC’s Weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 37 of 2020.

    Read more news on BARC

    BARC’s Weekly list of top 10 pay channels across genres was dominated by two south Indian language channels – three from the Tamil genre, two channels from the Telugu genres and one from the Bangla genre along with four Hindi GECs. There were four channels from Star India, three channels from Zeel, one channel each from SPN, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18. One channel exited the list in Week 37 of 2020 – the Viacom18 associated ETV Telugu which was replaced by Star India’s flagship Banga GEC Star Jalsha at rank 10.

    All the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 free channels in Week 37 of 2020 were the same as in the previous in the same rank order. Six of the channels were Hindi GECs’ while four were Hindi Movies channels. There were three channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18, and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr10 Television, Goldmine Telefilms, Star India and SPN. 

    Please refer to the table below:

  • Star Plus most watched pay TV channel across genres in Week 35

    Star Plus most watched pay TV channel across genres in Week 35

    BENGALURU: Star India’s Hindi GECs’ Star Plus and Star Utsav topped all the three across genres weekly lists published by Broadcast Audience Research Council of India in the public domain for Week 35 of 2020 (Saturday, 29 August 2020 to Friday, 4 September 2020, week or period under review). While Star Utsav topped BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres and Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres, flagship Hindi GEC Star Plus topped BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across genre during the period under review. Further, Star Plus was ranked second in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres.

    Hindi GEC’s once again prop up Television Viewership

    BARC data reveals that viewership in Week 35 and Week 34 was the same at 16.9 billion weekly impressions. Analysis of BARC data for the Top 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels of genres/sub-genres/languages/ platforms in the public domain indicates that as in the case of Week 34, it was again Hindi GECs’ that propped up television viewership. The Top 5 Kids, Hindi and English Movies and News channels in 10 languages lost viewership in Week 35 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Analysis of BARC data for the top 4, 5 or 10 GEC channels reveals that though GEC viewership climbed up slightly, GECs’ of most languages lost viewership, while the Hindi GEC genre, which is quite a large genre, gained viewership. To quite an extent, Hindi GECs’ helped maintain television viewership in terms of weekly impressions. It must be noted that Week 34 of 2020 had witnessed the largest drop on 0.7 billion weekly impressions from the 17.6 billion weekly impressions in Week 33 of 2020.

    Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

    The Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres were all GECs’. Hindi GECs’ dominated the list in Week 35 of 2020. There were eight of them present in the Across Genres on All Platforms list in Week 35 of 2020. Besides the 8 Hindi GECs’, there was one channel each from the Tamil and Telugu genres. As mentioned above, Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav continued heading BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020 for the fourth week in a row.  As a matter of fact, 8 of the 10 channels in BARC’s Weekly list for Week 35 of 2020 were the same as in the previous week. Two Telugu channels from the weekly list for Week 34 0f 2020 exited and were replaced by two Hindi GECs’ in Week 35 of 2020. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) flagship Kannada GEC and the Network18 (Viacom18) affiliated ETV Telugu exited and were replaced by Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV and Viacom18’s Hindi GEC Colors Rishtey.

    There were 3 Star India channels, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zeel and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Sun TV Network (Sun TV) and Network18/Viacom18 in the list for Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below:

    Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

    Sun TV gave way to Star Plus which led BARC Weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres during the period under review. Nine of the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list for Week 35 of 2020 were the same as in the previous week, but with some shuffling of ranks. Zee Kannada, exited the list and was replaced by Star India’s flagship Tamil GEC Star Vijay. BARC’s weekly list of Across genres pay channels was dominated by two South Indian languages GECs’ – there were six of them – three each from the Tamil and Telugu genres and four Hindi GECs’ in the list for Week 35 of 2020.

    There were three channels each from Star India and Star India two channels from Network18/Viacom18 and one channel each from SPN and the Sun Tv Network in BARC’s weekly top pay channels list for Week 34 of 2020. Please refer to the chart below.

    Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres

    Star Utsav headed BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020. All of the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020 were the same as in Week 34 with only one shuffling  ranks – Zeel’s Big Magic moved up one rank to eighth place and Viacom18’s Hindi Movies channel Rishtey Cineplex dropped a rank to ninth in Week 35 of 2020 as compared to Week 34.

    There were three channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18 and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr 10 Television, Goldmine Telefilms, SPN and Star India in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020. There six Hindi GECs’ and four Hindi Movies channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 35 of 2020. Please refer to the figure below:

  • Hindi channels prop up Top TV channels viewership as Star Utsav dominance continues

    Hindi channels prop up Top TV channels viewership as Star Utsav dominance continues

    BENGALURU: Television viewership in terms of weekly impressions declined 3.98 percent in Week 34 of 2020 (Week 34: Saturday, 22 August 2020 to Friday, 28 August 2020, week or period under review) as compared to the immediate previous week 33. Per Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly data in the public domain, overall TV+OOH viewership in Week 34 of 2020 was 16.9 billion weekly impressions as compared to 17.6 billion weekly impressions in Week 33. After a steady increase since Unlock 1.0 (Week 22 of 2020), the drop of 0.7 billion impressions was the steepest one since the country opened up after the Covid2019 Lockdown that had commenced on 25 March 2020 or midweek in Week 13 of 2020. At that time, home-tied Indians turned to the easiest and most accessible medium for live news. Indians wanted to know more and more about the new pandemic that had forced most of the world to suddenly stop. Television viewership shot up to 20.9 billion impressions in Week 14 of 2020, with the News genre recording the largest growth, while GEC viewership slid down. Four genres – GEC, Movies, News and Kids are normally responsible for more than 90 percent of television viewership. The breakup for the COVID2019 average between Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020 was: GEC at 52 percent, Movies at 23 percent, and News and Kids at 7 percent each, or a combined total of 89 percent. The breakup of the combined total of 94 percent for these four genres in Week 13 of 2020 was GEC 40 percent, Movies 29 percent, News 18 percent and Kids 7 percent. It must be noted that overall television viewership had climbed up 

    Despite the drop in Week 34 of 2020, TV viewership based on weekly impressions in Week 34 of 2020 was 1.4 percent more than the average of Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020 of 14.8 billion weekly impressions. The current ratings agency BARC along with the older one Nielsen commenced editions of “Crisis Consumption – Impact Of COVID -19 On TV And Smartphone Behaviour Across India”. At the time of writing of this paper, eleven editions have been released by BARC-Nielsen. The ratings duo has standardized the average data for Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020 as a measure for television consumption trends. The author has also used the same yardstick to analyze television consumption trends of the Top channels based on BARC weekly data published each week in the public domain of the top 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 Television channels of each genre, sub-genre, language and/or platform in all-India or the respective market, The analysis of this paper is limited to that extent. Where required, data from the 11 editions released by BARC-Nielsen has been used. Though the percentages of share of consumption may differ from the numbers in the BARC-Nielsen reports and those arrived at by the author based on limited BARC data available in the public domain, BARCs’ historical conclusions generally conform with them. Please refer to the figure below for TV+OOH viewership data as per BARC Weekly data.

    Viewership share of GECs’ has been growing post Week 22 of 2020 per the latest BARC-Nielsen report which included data for Week 33 of 2020. Week 22 of 2020 was when a number of genres started creating fresh content after UNLOCK 1.0 commenced. Viewership share of GECs’ was 52 percent of overall television in Week 33 of 2020 which is at par with the Pre-COVID2019 average (average of Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020). In Week 12 of 2020, it had plunged to an all-time low of 39 percent. The 11th edition of the BARC-Nielsen report that included data for Week 33 of 2020 revealed that the overall television viewership of 17.6 billion impressions was still 22 percent higher than the pre-COVID2019 viewership. The breakup of growth in viewership between the HSM and South in Week 33 of 2020 was 24 percent and 17 percent respectively.

    Analysis of BARC data of the top 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels of different genres of GECs’ reveals that despite viewership of the top 56 unique GEC channels from multiple genres declining 0.7 percent in Week 34 of 2020 as compared to 54  unique GEC channels from multiple genres in Week 34, the ratings of top 16 Hindi GECs’ was flat (increased 0.1 percent) as compared to the previous week. The drop in viewership was mainly in the regional languages including South Indian languages GECs’.

    Similarly, in the case of News channels, though ratings of 50 plus unique news channels in different language declined by more than 5 percent in Week 34 of 2020 as compared to Week 33, ratings of the Top 5 Hindi News channels during the same period increased by 4.2 percent as compared to 6 unique channels in Week 33 of 2020.  Hence, it is the Hindi channels that have reduced the impact of the fall in overall viewership ratings in Week 34 of 2020 from the ratings of Week 33 of 2020.

    The figure below shows viewership share of various genres. It must be noted that the number of unique channels in both weeks is not the same (184 in Week 33 and 183 in Week 34 of 2020), and hence the number of unique channels across genres/sub-genres/languages/platform in the chart below are not the same in some cases. The author has created a rough measure by using data for unique channels that figure in BARCs’ weekly lists of Top 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels for the two weeks.

    Top 10 Channels on All PlatformsAcross Genres

    Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav continued heading BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 34 of 2020 for the third week in a row. As a matter of fact, 9 of the 10 channels in BARC’s Weekly list for Week 34 of 2020 were the same and had almost the same ranks as in the previous week. The only small reshuffling in ranks was the exchange of ranks between Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) Hindi GEC Zee Anmol and Star India’s flagship Hindi GEC Star Plus. The latter moved up one place while the formed dropped one place to rank4. The other change was that Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV at rank 10 in Week 33 of 2020 exited the list during the period under review and was replaced by the Network18 (Viacom18) associated Telugu channel ETV Telugu.

    Six Hindi GECs’, three Telugu channels and one Tamil channel made up BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 30 of 2020. There were 3 Star India channels, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zeel and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Sun TV Network (Sun TV) and Network18/Viacom18 in the list for Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 34 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below:

    Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

    Sun TV continued to lead BARC Weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres during the period under review. Nine of the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list for Week 34 of 2020 were the same as in the previous week, but with some shuffling of ranks. Gemini TV, The Sun TV Network’s flagship Telugu GEC, exited the list and was replaced by Zeel’s flagship Kannada GEC Zee Kannada.

    There were four channels from the Hindi GEC genre, three channels from the Telugu genre two channels from the Tamil genre and one channel Kannada genre in BARC weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in Week 34 of 2020. There were three channels from Zeel, two channels each from Star India, Sun Tv Network and Network18/Viacom18 and one channel from SPN in BARC’s weekly top paychannels list for Week 34 of 2020. Please refer to the chart below.

    Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres

    Star Utsav headed BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 34 of 2020. All of the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 30 of 2020 were the same as in Week 29 with some shuffling of ranks

    There were three channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18 and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr 10 Television, Goldmine Telefilms, SPN and Star India in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 30 of 2020. There six Hindi GECs’ and four Hindi Movies channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in Week 29 of 2020. Please refer to the figure below:


     

  • Hindi and South Indian GECs drive television viewership up; Sun TV back on Top across genres

    Hindi and South Indian GECs drive television viewership up; Sun TV back on Top across genres

    BENGALURU: Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) reported 1.73 percent growth in overall television impressions in week 30 of 2020 (Saturday, 25 July 2020 to Friday, 31 July 2020, week or period under review) to 17.6 billion weekly impressions from 17.3 billion weekly impressions in the previous week. This number is still 21.4 percent higher than the viewership of 14.5 billion impressions reported for week 4 of 2020.

    BARC and Nielsen had set the average viewership data between weeks two and four of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during COVID-19 weeks. The author has considered week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here.

    Viewership has been driven mainly by GECs after the series of UNLOCKs’ announced by the government and airing of new content created post UNLOCK.  In week 30 of 2019, the growth drivers have been mainly South Indian channels and Hindi GECs. The analysis in this paper is limited to BARC data available in the public domain – the top 2,3,4,5 or 10 channels of the genre/sub-genre/language/platform/market. The unit of data released by BARC is impressions in thousands (000s). The channels in BARC’s weekly lists may vary week-on-week depending upon the viewership numbers in terms of weekly impressions each channel attracts.Conclusions by the author have been derived from this limited BARC data.

    BARC data in the public domain for week 30 of 2020 reveals that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 Hindi GECs on all platforms in the Hindi speaking urban and rural markets, HSM (U+R) increased 3.9 percent as compared to the previous week. Viewership of the top 5 channels of the four South Indian languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu also increased 7.1percent, 2.1 percent, 13.5 percent and 1.3 percent respectively. BARC considers the Hindi speaking market as all India minus the markets where the four South Indian languages are predominantly used – these are Karnataka (Kannada), Malayalam (Kerala), Tamil (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Telugu (Andhra Pradesh or AP and Telangana). By itself, the South Indian market is a huge market in terms of television penetration, and among the four, Tamil and Telugu markets are big in terms of population and TV homes.  After the various Hindi genres, BARC provided the most segmented but limited data for the four South Indian languages in the public domain. BARC provides data for the Top 5 News channels in Hindi, the four South Indian languages and English in the public domain.

    The other regional languages for which BARC releases limited data in the public domain are Assamese, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and Panjabi. BARC provides data for the top channels in each of these languages – these could be GECs or News or Movies, as also separate data for the Top 5 News channels in Assamese, Bangla, Oriya and Marathi. week 30 of 2020 saw viewership of Top 5 channels of Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati and Marathi grow 9.4 percent, 4.1 percent, 2.2 percent and 6.2 percent respectively. Combined viewership of the Top 5 Bhojpuri, Oriya and Panjabi channels in week 30 of 2020 fell 4.9 percent, 0.03 percent and 4.9 percent respectively as compared to the previous week.

    According to BARC data, GECs, movies, news and kids genres in that order garner around 90 percent of overall television viewership. GEC is the largest genre with about 45 percent of overall television viewership, with movies garnering between 23 to 27 percent of the viewership and the Kids genre about 7-8 percent. Post Covid2019, UNLOCK, the News genres has been garnering around 15 percent of television viewership. 

    Viewership of the Top 5 Hindi movie channels in HSM (U+R) on all platforms increased by 0.1 percent in week 30 of 2020 as compared to week 29.  The Top 5 kids channels saw combined weekly impressions grow 2.6 percent during the week under review as compared to week 29 of 2020.

    The Top 5 Hindi news channels in HSM (U+R) and the Top 5 English Nnews channels saw weekly impressions increase 3.7 percent and 12.4 percent respectively. The English news genre is a small sub-genre in terms of viewership. 

    Combined viewership of the Top 5 Assamese, Bangla, Marathi and Oriya news channels declined 9.9 percent, 4.3 percent, 6.6 percent and 0.03 percent respectively as compared to week 29. The Top 5 Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu news channels witnessed viewership dips of 18.4 percent, 2.5 percent and 3.9 percent respectively, while the Top 5 Tamil news channels saw weekly impressions increase of 7.2 percent in week 30 of 2020 as compared to week 29. 

    Hence overall viewership in terms of weekly impressions was driven mainly by Hindi GECs and channels in the four South Indian languages, with some help from the other three major television genres.

    Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

    The Sun Tv Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV regained top spot as the most watched channel on all platforms across genres after a hiatus. All the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in week 30 of 2020 were the same as in the previous week, with some shuffling of ranks.

    Seven Hindi GECs, two Telugu channels and one Tamil channel made up BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in week 30 of 2020. There were 3 Star India channels, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Sun TV Network (Sun TV) and Viacom18 in the list for Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in week 30 of 2020.

    Please refer to the table below:

    Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

    Nine of the channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 30 of 2020 were the same as in week 29. One Star India Hindi movies channel at rank 10 – Star Gold exited the list in week 30 to be replaced by another Star India channel – Tamil GEC Star Vijay at the same rank (rank 10).

    There were three channels each from the Hindi GEC and Telugu genres, two channels from the Tamil genre and one channel each from the Kids and the Hindi movies genres in BARC weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 30 of 2020. There were three channels each from Star India and Viacom18 (or associated with Viacom18 through its parent Network 18), two channels from SPN and one channel each from Sun TV and Zeel.

    Please refer to the table below:

    Top 10 FreeChannels Across Genres
    Nine of the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 30 of 2020 were the same as in week 29. One channel – Enterr10 Television’s Bhojpuri channel, Bhojpuri Cinema, exited the list in week 30 of 2020 to be replaced by Zeel’s Bhojpuri channel Zee Biskope.

    There were four channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18 and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr 10 Television, SPN and Star India in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 30 of 2020. There six Hindi GECs, three Hindi Movies channels and one Bhojpuri channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020.

    Please refer to the table below:


     

  • Zee Anmol claws to top place in Free Across Genres channels in week 29

    Zee Anmol claws to top place in Free Across Genres channels in week 29

    BENGALURU: Television viewership dipped slightly in week 29 of 2020 (Saturday, 18 July 2020 to Friday, 24 July 2020, week or period under review) according to Broadcast Audience Research Council Research on India (BARC) weekly data as compared to the previous week. BARC reported 17.3 billion impressions as Television viewership for week 29 of 2020 as compared to 17.4 billion weekly impressions during the immediate trailing week – week 28. BARC releases weekly data for the top two, three, four, five or 10 channels of a language, genre or sub-genre in the public domain. Besides, BARC also releases data for the Top 10 channels on all platforms across genres on all platform, on the pay platform and on the free platform. Similar data is also split up for the top Hindi GECs on these platforms along with further segmentation of the combined urban and rural Hindi speaking market or HSM (U+R), in HSM (U) and HSM (R). For regional and other genres such as news, languages, BARC publishes data for the top 5 or lesser channels.

    The analysis in this paper is limited to BARC data available in the public domain – the top two, three, four, five or 10 channels of the genre/sub-genre/language/platform/market.

    Despite the small dip in television ratings, GECs viewership in general seems to have continued climbing, while the News genre seems to have continued the trend of reduction in eyeballs. BARCs’ data for week 29 for the Top five channels in Assamese, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu channels shows that their combined ratings increased as compared to week 28. Only the combined weekly ratings of the top five Gujarati and Kannada channels fell as compared to the previous week. It must be noted that some of the channels in the above genres are movie channels, news channels, etc. However, BARC does publish data in the public domain of the Top five News channels in Hindi, English, Assamese, Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Telugu and Tamil languages. The combined weekly impressions of the top 5 News channels in all these languages declined except for Bangla and Oriya News channels, which increased by 1.8 percent and 2.2 percent respectively in week 29 of 2020 as compared to week 28. The combined weekly impressions of the other two major genres – Movies (almost flat growth – increased by 0.5 percent) and Kids (declined by 4.2 percent) in week 29 of 2020 did see some changes, but not enough to make a major impact to overall weekly television viewership. These four genres – GEC, Movies, News and Kids generally constitute 90 percent of the overall television ratings according to BARC reports.

    Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

    Since its return to DD Free Dish, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd’s second Hindi GEC Zee Anmol has seen viewership climb. The channel was ranked fourth in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels om All Platforms Across Genres in week 29 of 2020. Long time numero uno on this list – Enterr 10 Television’s Dangal had lost its peak position when many of the Hindi GECs returned to DD Free Dish a few weeks ago. Dangal was now ranked 5 in week 29 of 2020. 

    Seven Hindi GECs, two Telugu channels and one channel made up BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in week 29 of 2020. There were 3 Star India channels, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Sun TV Network (Sun TV) and Viacom18 in the list for Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in week 29 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below:

    Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

    Two channels -ranked ninth and tenth in the previous week (week 28 of 2020) exited BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020 to be replaced by Viacom18’s flagship Hindi GEC Colors and Star India’s Hindi Movies channel Star Gold. The other 8 channels in BARC’s weekly list in week 29 of 2020 were the same in the previous week, with a slight juggling of ranks. There were three channels each from the Hindi GEC and Telugu genres, two channels from the Hindi Movies and one channel each from the Kids and the Tamil genres in BARC weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020. There were three channels each from Star India and Viacom18 (or associated with Viacom18 through its parent Network 18), two channels each from SPN and Zeel and one channel from Sun Tv.

    Please refer to the figure below:

    Top 10 FreeChannels Across Genres

    Zee Anmol clawed its way to the top spot in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020. All the channels in the weekly list for week 29 of 2020 were the same as in week 28 with some shuffling of ranks. There were 3 channels each from Viacom18 and Zeel, two channels from Enterr10 Television and one channel each from B4U Network and Star India in BARC’sweekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020. There six Hindi GECs, three Hindi movies channels and one Bhojpuri channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres in week 29 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below:


     

  • Larger networks takeover free Across Genres list as Star Utsav tops All Platforms

    Larger networks takeover free Across Genres list as Star Utsav tops All Platforms

    BENGALURU: Among the bigger networks that have channels feature in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms, on the Pay and Free Platforms are DD, Network18/TV18/Viacom18 (or simply Viacom18) Star India, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), The Sun TV Network (Sun Network), and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel).  Many of the channels from these networks, as well as other networks were now available on Pay and Free Platforms, on the latter mainly because of their presence on Prasar Bharati’s free DTH service DD Free Dish.

    Until recently, channels from these bigger networks found places mostly in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms and on the Pay Platform. And until the advent of the Covid2019 Lockdown, there were generally one to four channels from two major networks/groups that were present in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres. These two are pubcaster Doordarshan and channels from or associated with the Essel group’s Zeel. Initially, DD was represented by only one of its channels, DD Sports, and that too for only the first three weeks of 2020. Zeel was represented by four of its channels in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres lists– Big Magic (Hindi GEC), Big Ganga (Bhojpuri GEC), Zee Biskope (Bhojpuri Cinema) and Zing (Youth). Only Big Magic was present during all the first 12 weeks of BARC’s Free Across Genres weekly lists. As a matter of fact, Big Magic was present during all the first 26 weeks of these BARC weekly lists of the Top Free Channels Across. Besides Big Magic, normally there were at least two other Zeel channels and sometimes even three that were present in the weekly Free Channels Across Genres lists during the first 12 weeks of 2020. But, at the same time, least six of the channels were from the smaller networks such as Enterr 10 Television and B4U Network. Enterr 10 had three to four of its channels in each of the first 12 weekly Free Platform lists, while B4U had two or three of its channels in the lists during the same period. Enterr 10’s channels included Bhojpuri Cinema, Dangal, Fakt Marathi and Enterr 10, while B4U’s channels were B4U Bhojpuri, B4U Kadak and B4U Movies.

    Week 13 of 2020, the first week of the Covid2019 Lockdown had four channels– one channel from DD and three channels from Zeel, with five channels from Enterr 10 (three channels) and B4U (two channels). The India Today group’s flagship Hindi News channel Aaj Tak entered BARC’s Across Genres weekly lists for the first time, in two Across Genres lists – Across Genres on All Platforms and Across Genres Free Platform.  In the absence of fresh programming, DD National started airing some of its library shows that had been very popular in the previous century, in Week 12 of 2020. These included Ramanad Sagar’s Ramayan and B R Chopra’s Mahabharat along with a number of other classics from its library. In Week 13, DD National became the most watched channel across genres on All Platforms and the Pay Platform and was also present in the Free Platform Across Genres list. DD National continued in the top 10 Across Genres lists until Week 18 2020. Week 14 saw DD Bharti enter BARC’s weekly list of Top Free Channels Across genres. The split was now five channels each between the bigger and other networks. And this split continued on till Week 22 of 2020. Weeks’ 23, 24, 25 and 26 of 2020 saw ratio of Bigger Networks: Other Networks at 7:3, 7:3, 8:2 and 7:3 respectively. Data for Week 26 of 2020 (Saturday, 27 June 2020 to Friday, 3 July 2020) is available at the time of writing of this paper. In Week 14 of 2020, the bigger networks were the same as in previous weeks – DD with two channels and Zeel with three channels. Similarly, the other networks mix was the same – Enterr 10 Television had three channels in the list while B4U Network had two channels. DD Bharti exited the Top 10 Free Across Genres list in Week 20, and DD National exited it in Week 24. For Weeks 20 and 21, there were 4 Zeel channels in the list, three channels from Enterr 10, 2 from B4U and one from DD. 

    In Week 23, two channels, one each from SPN and Star India and two Vaicom18 channels replaced two Zeel channels and one channel each from B4U Network and Enterr 10 Television in the list. Post Week 22 of 2020, channels from these major networks have continued their presence in BARC’s Weekly list of Top Free Channels Across Genres lists at the cost of B4U Networks and Enterr 10 Television. The bigger networks have taken over BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres. 

    Television consumption in terms of minutes, average time spent and reach has been declining from the highs of the lockdown weeks. Getting their second rung Hindi GEC and Movies channels on DD’s free DTH platform Free Dish is probably the best thing that the four major networks SPN, Star India, Viacom18 and Zeel could have done from viewership growth point of view is concerned. Analysis of BARC data in the public domain shows that 51.6 percent of Star Utsav’s viewership was on the Free Platform. In The case of Zee Anmol, Rishtey Cineplex and Sony Pay, viewership on the Free Platform was even higher. Channels such as Dangal which has seen viewership decline with the advent of Hindi GECs’ from the major networks in recent weeks had almost 70 percent of its viewership on the free platform in Week 26 of 2020.

    Besides, as stated above, GEC share of viewership has increased from the lows of the Covid2019 lockdown period. Please refer to the chart below:

    Hindi GECs have seen viewership growth on the Free Platform and in Rural Markets

    As mentioned above, these channels have re-joined Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) Top 10 channels weekly lists on All Platforms and on the Pay and Free Platforms or have jumped up ranks in in general in their respective genres in the Hindi Speaking Market (HSM), be it the combined urban and rural – HSM (U+R) or HSM (U) or HSM (R) over the past few weeks. After a slow and steady decline that started in Week 15 and continued in Weeks 17 to 22 of 2020 as compared to the immediate trailing week. Combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Hindi GEC’s on All Platforms in HSM (U+R) have now grown week on week. Weeks 23, 24, 25 and 26 of 2020 saw viewership of the Top 10 Hindi GECs’ in HSM (U+R) grow by 4.9, 6.9, 4.4 and 2.5 percent respectively. 

    The BARC-Nielsen yardstick is the average data between Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020. Using this reference point, the combined weekly impressions of Top 10 Hindi GECs’ in HSM (U+R) have been consistently increasing starting Week 13 of 2020, except for a small fall of 0.3 percent in Week 22. Until Week 26 of 2020, consumption of the Top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U+R) in terms of weekly impressions has increased by 18.7 percent as compared to the Weeks two to four average and by 14 percent as compared to Week 1 of 2020. This growth has been led by the Free Hindi GECs and by the rural market or HSM (R) according to BARC data for the Top 10 Hindi GECs on the Free and Pay Platforms and in HSM (U+R), HSM (U) and HSM (R). 
    Exact comparison has not been done based BARC data because until Week 15 of 2020, BARC only listed the Top 9 Channels in HSM (R) and for the Free Platform in the public domain. But, considering the viewership growth of the Top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U+R) of 18.7 percent in Week 26 of 2020, viewership of Top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U) has increased by just 1.8 percent with respect to the average of Weeks 2- 4 of 2020. In the same period viewership of Top 10 Hindi GECs on the Pay Platform has declined by 2.1 percent, as compared to the average of the Top 10 channels in Weeks 2 to 4 of 2020.

    The increase in viewership of GECs is also evident from the figure below based on BARC-Nielsen data for the top four most watched genres below. As is obvious the share of GEC viewership has started increasing and has come up to 48 percent in Week 26 of 2020 from the lows (40 percent) of the Covid2019 weeks, but has still to touch or exceed the pre-Covid2019 period’s 52 percent.

    Some other trends in Top 10 Channels Across Genres lists in Week 26 of 2020

    26 channels have appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres lists during the first 26 weeks of 2020. Of these 26, only three channels – Dangal, Sony Sab and Sun TV have appeared consistently in the lists during all the 26 weeks. Among the frontline channels – Star Plus was present in the list for 21 weeks, followed by its Telugu Sibling Star Maa, which was present for 20 of 26 weeks in the lists. Weeks 25 and 26 of BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Channels Across Genres saw Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav at rank no 1.

    20 channels appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres lists during the first 26 weeks of 2020. Here also only three channels appeared in the lists for all the 26 weeks – they were Sony SAB, Star Maa and Sun TV. Sun TV has been consistently ranked 1 during all the 26 weeks to date in this list.

    22 channels appeared in BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres lists during the first 26 weeks of 2020. Here also only three channels appeared in the lists for all the 26 weeks – they were Dangal, Big Magic and B4U Kadak. Dangal has been consistently ranked 1 during all the 26 weeks to date in this list. Please refer to the figure below:


     

  • Sun TV back on top as Star Utsav becomes most-watched Hindi GEC across genres

    Sun TV back on top as Star Utsav becomes most-watched Hindi GEC across genres

    BENGALURU: In a week that saw news channels grab eyeballs with their coverage and debates and discussions post the Indo-China Gawlan Valley skirmish, the Sun Tv Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV regained its numero uno position in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres. BARC weekly data for Week 24 of 2020 (Saturday, 13 June 2020 to Friday, 19 June 2020, week or period under review)In calendar year 2020, Sun TV had last headed BARC’s Weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 2 of 2020. 

    Week 24 of 2020 saw TV consumption increase by about 1.2 percent week-on-week to 16.5 billion weekly impressions from 16.3 billion weekly impressions in Week 23.The increase in television consumption in Week 24 of 2020 was 13.8 percent higher than the consumption of 14.5 billion weekly impressions in Week 4, which has been considered as the base Pre-COVID2019 week here. Though a lot of the increased viewership was garnered by news channels in Week 24 of 2020, Hindi GECs also saw viewership grow.

    Ratings agencies 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 Covid2019 reports are available for weeks between Weeks 11 and 18 of 2020 at the time of writing of this paper. As mentioned above, the author has considered Week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here. Please refer to the figure below for TV viewership trends over the past few weeks.

    The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Free channels Across Genres increased 19.6 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week, while at the same time, the combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres was almost flat (increased by 0.5 percent). Combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay channels declined 2.5 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week.

    The week under review also saw Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav climb to second place in BARC’s Weekly lists of Top 10 channels on All Platforms and find a place in all the three BARC across genres lists. Dangal slipped a couple of ranks to third place in BARC’s across genres on all platforms list, but continued to head BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres.

    Please refer to the chart below:

    While the Top 10 Hindi GECs in the HSM (U+R) market saw consumption spike 6.9 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to Week 23, the Top 5 Hindi movie channels saw consumption dip 2.6 percent in terms of weekly impressions. The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Hindi GEC in HSM (U+R) on All Platforms increased 6.9 percent and those of the Free Platform increased 27.3 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Hindi GECs’ on the Pay Platform declined 3.5 percent during the same period. Growth was driven by the HSM (R) which saw the combined weekly impressions increase 12.4 percent as compared to flat growth in the combined weekly impressions in HSM (U).
     

  • Viewership dynamics changing in Unlock 1.0? Hindi GEC viewership grows on DD Free Dish?

    Viewership dynamics changing in Unlock 1.0? Hindi GEC viewership grows on DD Free Dish?

    BENGALURU: Television consumption decreased slightly (reduced 0.6 percent) in Week 23 of 2020 (Saturday, 6 June 2020 to Friday, 12 June 2020) to 16.3 billion weekly impressions as compared to the previous week which had scored 16.4 billion weekly impressions according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly data. BARC had reported viewership of 16.3 billion impressions for week 21 of 2020. This number is still 12.4 percent higher than the viewership of 14.5 billion impressions reported for week four of 2020.

    BARC and Nielsen have set the average viewership data between weeks two and four of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during Covid2019 weeks. While the lockdown in India commenced on 25 March 2020, which was midweek of week 12 of 2020, BARC-Nielsen Covid2019 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 four of 2020 as the reference week here.

    GECs have shown growth in viewership. Is it because a number of them, more so Hindi GECs and movies channels, have returned to DD Free Dish’s fold? Quite likely.

    This paper must be read with caveats. The conclusions are based on BARC weekly data in the public domain which comprises of the combined weekly impressions of the top two, three, five or 10 channels of each genre/sub-genre/platform or across genres.  The author has used the combined weekly impressions of the Top ten, five, three or two channels of the genre sub/genre during different weeks for comparison and the conclusions in this paper are limited to that extent. Further, the channels listed in BARC’s weekly lists needn’t be the same week-on-week. The comparison of combined weekly for all the weeks mentioned in this paper is meant for genre/sub-genre/platform comparison, not any individual channel (if named anywhere in this paper). In some cases, viewership in terms of combined weekly impressions of the week under review and week four is not comparable because the number of channels in BARC’s weekly lists of the respective genres/sub-genres/platforms during the two periods were not same. Probably BARC watermarks were provided for some of the channels after week four of 2020.

    For Hindi GECs, BARC provides data for the Top 10 Hindi GECs in a combination  of the urban and rural Hindi speaking markets or HSM (U+R) on all platforms; HSM (U+R) on the pay platform; HSM (U+R) on the free platform; HSM (R) on all platforms; and on HSM (U) on all platforms. It also provides data for Hindi movies in these five segmentations. It must be noted that as per BARC, HSM includes the All India market minus the south Indian markets of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. 

    In the case of regional channels, BARC provides data for the top five Assamese, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi channels as also for the four south Indian languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. Many of the channels included in the respective lists of top five regional channels are from mixed genres – these could be news, music, movies, infotainment and spiritual channels. In many of the cases, it is often the news segment/programme of the GEC that is amongst BARC’s weekly list of top five programmes which is probably one of the reasons why a channel landed up in BARC’s top five channels list for that language in the first place. However, BARC’s top five lists of languages such as Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Bangla and Marathi have a channel mix that consists mainly of GECs and movies that run mainly GEC and/or movies content. 

    In the pre-Covid2019 weeks, four genres had 89 percent of television viewership share – in terms of size, they are GEC, movies, news and the kids genres.  The viewership share of these genres grew to 93 percent in week 18 of 2020 as per the 8th edition of the BARC-Nielsen report for week 18 of 2020. Please refer to the figure below:

    Overall, GEC had 52 percent viewership share in the pre-Covid2019 lockdown weeks. In the absence of fresh content, as well as stiff competition from news and movies channels, GEC viewership share declined to about 40 percent of total television consumption in week 13 of 2020 when there was huge growth in overall television consumption due to the various phases of the lockdowns in India. Considering the larger television consumption, more people preferred watching the news and movies genres, as well as the kids genre. Many GECs run movies on a regular schedule. Post the first few weeks of the Covid2019 lockdown, when the movies genre showed viewership growth, many GECs, more so in south India, started airing movies, and most still continue to do so. This helped perk up the viewership of GECs to grow.

    The Hindi GEC genre has a large combined viewership as compared to the all the other languages. BARC’s weekly lists of the top 10 Hindi GECs' growth was led by the HSM (R) market and the free platform in week 23 of 2020 as compared to week 21. Also, a number of second rung Hindi GECs and movie channels returned to DD Free Dish in June 2020. The reach and television consumption on the government’s free DTH service has brought back channels such as Sony Pal, Star Utsav, Colors Rishtey an Rishtey Cineplus back into BARC’s weekly lists of top five or 10 channels in their respective genres and across genres lists.

    The combined viewership of the top 10 Hindi GECs on All Platforms grew 4.1 percent in week 23 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Consumption of the Top 10 Hindi GECs in the urban Hindi Speaking Market or HSM (U) in week 23 of 2020 was almost flat as compared to the previous week. Consumption of the Top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U) grew just 0.8 percent as against the 10.9 percent growth in the rural hindi speaking market or HSM (R) in the period under review as compared to the previous week. Consumption of the Top 10 Hindi GECs on the free platform grew 21.1 percent in Week 23 of 2020 as compared to the Week 22. TV consumption of the top 10 Hindi GECs on the pay platform grew 1.5 percent in week under review as compared to the previous week. 

    Viewership growth was witnessed by the top five Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam and Bangla channels. Except for Tamil, the other three witnessed viewership growth in at lest three of the top 5 channels. In the case of Tamil, the Sun Tv Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV had major growth in Week 23 of 2020, with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd's Tamil flagship channel Zee Tamil showing a small amount of growth as compared to week 22. The other three channels in BARC’s weekly list of top five Tamil channels showed decline in viewership in terms of weekly impressions in week 23 of 2020 as compared to the previous week.

    Another indicator that Hindi GECs could have grown is BARC’s weekly lists of top 10 channels across genres – BARC has segmented across genres to the top 10 channels across genres on all platforms, on the pay platform and the free platform. Though the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels across genres on all platforms in week 23 of 2020 were almost the same (grew 0.3 percent) as compared to the previous week, a Hindi GEC replaced a Telugu channel in the weekly list during the week under review. Though the combined weekly impressions of BARC's weekly list of top 10 channels on the free platform in week 23 of 2020 declined 1.4 percent as compared to the previous week, two Hindi GECs entered the list at the cost of a Hindi movies and Bhojpuri channels. One more Hindi GEC that entered the free platform across genres list replaced another Hindi GEC. 

    The Hindi movies genre showed flat growth (combined weekly impressions of top 5 movies channels on all platforms de-grew by 0.7 percent) in week 23 of 2020 as compared to week 21. Combined weekly impressions of top 5 Hindi movies channels in HSM (U) was flat, while those in HSM (R) saw a growth of 1.9 percent in week 23 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Combined weekly impressions of the top 5 Hindi movies on the free platform grew 6.3 percent, while on the pay platform they grew by 0.2 percent (almost flat growth).

    Further, unlike the previous weeks, news channels lost viewership if BARC’s weekly data for Top 5 Assamese, Bangla, Hindi, English, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu News channels for week 23 of 2020 is considered. The Top 5 Kannada news channels seems to be the only news genre that has bucked the trend, combined viewership of the Top 5 Kannada channels grew by a phenomenal 48.7 percent in week 23 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. In is worth noting that three of the Top 5 Tamil programmes in week 23 of 2020 were Tamil films on Sun TV, the other two were non-film GEC shows.

    Another major genre-the kids genre has shown growth, going by BARC data of the top 5 kids channels for weeks 23 and 22 of 2020 – week 23 of 2020 saw weekly impressions of top 5 kids channels grow by four percent as compared to the previous week. The combine weekly impressions of top five channels of the other genres which saw growth during the week under review as compared to the previous week were music (7.7 percent growth); English entertainment (21.2 percent growth); sports (5.7 percent growth) and infotainment (1.2 percent growth). The overall viewership share of these genres is in single digits percentage.

  • DD National, Sun TV & Zee Biskope see viewership growth across genres

    DD National, Sun TV & Zee Biskope see viewership growth across genres

    BENGALURU: Week 13 of 2020 was a peak week in terms of television viewership which had climbed to an all-time high. Viewership fell in week 14 of 2020, but seems to have recovered a bit in week 15 of 2020 (Saturday, 11 April 2020 to Friday, 17 April 2020, week under review). Towards the mid-end of Week 12 of 2020 was when the Indian COVID-19 lockdown happened (25 March 2020), but events such as the Janta curfew happened at the start of week 12. Hence, week 12 can be considered the first week of the Indian COVID-19 lockdown. Television viewing habits and viewership have changed completely during the lockdown period in the country.

    Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for week 15 of 2020 reveals that only one of the nine channels that were present in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels Across Genres on All Platforms, on pay platform and free platform in weeks 13, 14 and 15 of 2020 have seen viewership growth in week on week (w-o-w) to week 15 as compared to the peak week. Pubcaster network Doordarshan’s (DD) flagship channel DD National saw viewership grow 21.4 per cent in week 14 of 2020 as compared to week 13 and saw it grow further in week 15 by 38.2 per cent vis-à-vis week 14 in BARC’s weekly across genres lists on all platforms. The most widely available terrestrial channel in the country saw viewership grow 68 per cent in week 15 as compared to week 13 in BARC’s weekly across genres lists on all platforms. The rerun of the mythology shows Ramayan and Mahabharat and a number of classics from the 80’s and 90’s of the previous century have helped two channels of DD grow viewership tremendously.

    Top 10 channels across genres on all platforms

    Nine channels have appeared in BARC’s weekly across genres lists on all platforms during all the three weeks under consideration here. The only exception was the Sun Network’s Tamil movies channel KTV, which exited in BARC’s weekly across genres lists on all platforms in week 14 of 2020, to be replaced by Viacom18’s Kids channel Nick.

    Sun TV Network’s flagship Tamil channel Sun TV saw viewership decline in week 14 by19.4 per cent as compared to week 13 of 2020, but then climb again strongly in week 15 by 48 per cent as compared to week 13.

    Two channels, each from DD, Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Star India, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18, were present in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels Across Genres on All Platforms in week 25 of 2020.  Five of the channels were Hindi GECs; there were two Hindi movie channels and there was one channel each from the kids, Tamil and Telugu genres present in the list in week 15 of 2020.

    Please refer to the chart below

    Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

    In BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres for weeks 13, 14 and 15 of 2020, DD National was the only channel that saw w-o-w growth in weeks 14 and 15 as compared to week 13 of 2020.

    Nine of the channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres have been the same in weeks 13, 14 and 15 of 2020 with a shuffling of ranks. The only change was when KTV exited the list in week 15 of 2020 to be replaced by its network’s sibling Telugu GEC Gemini TV. 

    Three channels each from the Hindi movies and Telugu genres, two channels from the Hindi GEC genre and one channel each from the kids and Tamil
    genre made up BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 15 of 2020. Two channels each from SPN, Star, Sun and Viacom 18 (one from Viacom18 and one from Eenadu TV group in which Viacom18’s majority owner Network18 has a stake) and one channel each from DD and Zee were present in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres.

    Please refer to the charts below:

    Top 10 Free-to-Air Channels Across Genres

    In the case of BARC’s weekly lists of Top 10 Free-to-Air Channels Across Genres, it was again DD National that maintained its w-o-w growth in weeks 14 and 15 as compared to week 13 of 2020. Further, Zeel’sBhohpuri cinema channel Zee Biskope also showed growth during week 15 vis-à-vis week 13, but it had seen a viewership drop in week 14 as compared to week 13 of 2020.

    Four Hindi GECs’, three channels from the Hindi Movies, two channels from the Bhojpuri genre and one channel from the Youth genre comprised BARC’s weekly list  of Top 10 Free-to-Air Channels Across Genres in week 15 of 2020. There were three channels each from Enterr 10 Television and Zeel and two channels each from B4U and DD networks in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free-to-Air Channels Across Genres during the week under review. 

    Here also, nine of the channels were present during the three weeks under consideration in this paper, but again with some shuffling of ranks. The India Today group’s Hindi News channel AajTakexited the list in week 14 to be replaced by DD’s Hindi GEC DD Bharati.

    Please refer to the charts below: