Tag: BARC

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:

August 12, 2020

BARC week 30: Rummy Circle returns to the list

NEW DELHI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) of India has released its data for top advertisers and brands for the period between 25 July to 31 July 2020.

The data reflects the top 10 advertisers and brands across genres on India television, 2+ Individuals, NCCS All demonstrating ads that were inserted the most in the 30th week of 2020.

Top advertisers:

Hindustan Unilever continued to be the biggest advertiser this week it got 280449 impressions. It was followed by Reckitt Benckiser which ranked second with 150176 ad impressions.

Brooke Bond Lipton India Ltd bagged the third spot with 40371 insertions. ITC Ltd and Colgate Palmolive India secured the fourth and fifth place with 38783 and 36073 ad insertions respectively.

Amazon Online India Pvt Ltd bagged the sixth spot with 25411 ad insertions.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Amazon Online India Pvt Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Procter & Gamble, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, Ponds India.

Rank	Advertiser	Insertions
		Week 30
1	HINDUSTAN LEVER LTD	280449
2	RECKITT BENCKISER (INDIA) LTD	150176
3	BROOKE BOND LIPTON INDIA LTD	40371
4	ITC LTD	38783
5	COLGATE PALMOLIVE INDIA LTD	36073
6	AMAZON ONLINE INDIA PVT LTD	25411
7	WIPRO LTD	25288
8	PROCTER & GAMBLE	25186
9	GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD	24883
10	PONDS INDIA	23130
TOP 10 Advertiser *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Advertisers

Top Brands-

Wheel Active 2 in 1 for the first time became the top brand this week with 16997 ad insertions. Dettol Toilet Soaps this time came in the second position with 16699 ad insertions. Lux Toilet Soap bagged the third spot, like last week, with 16640 ad impressions.

The fourth and the fifth spots were acquired by Dettol Antiseptic Liquid and Surf Excel easy wash with 16471 and 15720 ad insertions respectively.

The sixth position was grabbed by Rummy Circle for the first time in the last so many weeks with 13676 ad insertions.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Colgate Swarna Vedshakti, Lizol, Horlicks and Dettol Liquid Soap.

Rank	Brands	Insertions
		Week 30
1	WHEEL ACTIVE 2 IN 1	16997
2	DETTOL TOILET SOAPS	16699
3	LUX TOILET SOAP	16640
4	DETTOL ANTISEPTIC LIQUID	16471
5	SURF EXCEL EASY WASH	15720
6	RUMMYCIRCLE.COM	13676
7	COLGATE SWARNA VEDSHAKTI	12990
8	LIZOL	11791
9	HORLICKS	10904
10	DETTOL LIQUID SOAP	10678
TOP 10 Brands *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Brands

August 7, 2020

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:

August 5, 2020

BARC week 29: Surf Excel becomes the top advertiser

NEW DELHI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) of India has released its data for top advertisers and brands for the period between 18 July to 24 July 2020.

The data reflects the top 10 advertisers and brands across genres on India television, 2+ Individuals, NCCS All demonstrating ads that were inserted the most in the 29th week of 2020.

Top advertisers:

Hindustan Unilever continued to be the biggest advertiser in the month of July. This week it has got 283326 impressions, as compared to 266697 last week. It was followed by Reckitt Benckiser which ranked second with 131750 ad insertions.

Godrej Consumers Products bagged the third spot with 39611 insertions. ITC Ltd and Brooke Bond Lipton India Ltd secured the fourth and fifth place with 39536 and 39433 ad insertions respectively.

Colgate Palmolive India after many weeks bagged the sixth spot for the first time with 33942 ad insertions.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Procter & Gamble, Cadbury India, Ponds India, and Procter & Gamble home products.

Rank	Advertiser	Insertions
		Week 29
1	HINDUSTAN LEVER LTD	283326
2	RECKITT BENCKISER (INDIA) LTD	131750
3	GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD	39611
4	ITC LTD	39536
5	BROOKE BOND LIPTON INDIA LTD	39433
6	COLGATE PALMOLIVE INDIA LTD	33942
7	PROCTER & GAMBLE	30641
8	CADBURYS INDIA LTD	27660
9	PONDS INDIA	22637
10	PROCTER & GAMBLE HOME PRODUCTS	20200
TOP 10 Advertiser *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Advertisers

Top Brands-

Surf Excel for the first time in this month became the top brand this week with 19338 ad insertions. Dettol Antiseptic Liquid which bagged the first spot last week, this time came in the second position with 18342 ad insertions. Lux Toilet Soap reached the third spot, like last week, with 15830 ad impressions.

The fourth and the fifth spots were acquired by Wheel Active 2 in 1 Dettol Toilet Soaps with 14876 and 14043. The sixth position was grabbed by Dettol Liquid Soaps with 13781 ad generations.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Tease TVS Motor, Colgate Swarna Vedshakti, Horlicks and Fair & Lovely Multivitamin.

Rank	Brands	Insertions
		Week 29
1	SURF EXCEL EASY WASH	19338
2	DETTOL ANTISEPTIC LIQUID	18342
3	LUX TOILET SOAP	15830
4	WHEEL ACTIVE 2 IN 1	14876
5	DETTOL TOILET SOAPS	14043
6	DETTOL LIQUID SOAP	13781
7	TEASER-TVS MOTOR	12405
8	COLGATE SWARNA VEDSHAKTI	11606
9	HORLICKS	10944
10	FAIR & LOVELY ADVANCED MULTIVITAMIN	10058
TOP 10 Brands *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Brands

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July 31, 2020

BARC week 28: Dettol Antiseptic Liquid leads in advertisers’ list

NEW DELHI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) of India has released its data for top advertisers and brands for the period between 11 July to 17 July 2020.

The data reflects the top 10 advertisers and brands across genres on India television, 2+ Individuals, NCCS All demonstrating ads that were inserted the most in the 28th week of 2020.

Top advertisers:

Hindustan Unilever continued to be the biggest advertiser with 266697 insertions, followed by Reckitt Benckiser which ranked second with 123891 ad insertions.

Godrej Consumers Products bagged the third spot with 47783 insertions. ITC Ltd and Brooke Bond Lipton India Ltd secured the fourth and fifth place with 39701 and 37485 ad insertions respectively.

Procter & Gamble acquired the sixth spot with 37224 ad insertions on TV.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Cadbury India, Colgate Palmolive, Procter & Gamble home products, Ponds India.

Rank	Advertiser	Insertions
		Week 28
1	HINDUSTAN LEVER LTD	266697
2	RECKITT BENCKISER (INDIA) LTD	123891
3	GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD	47783
4	ITC LTD	39701
5	BROOKE BOND LIPTON INDIA LTD	37485
6	PROCTER & GAMBLE	37224
7	CADBURYS INDIA LTD	27201
8	COLGATE PALMOLIVE INDIA LTD	25526
9	PROCTER & GAMBLE HOME PRODUCTS	23467
10	PONDS INDIA	22028
TOP 10 Advertiser *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Advertisers

Top Brands:

Dettol Antiseptic Liquid which bagged the second spot last week, became the top brand this week with 20970 ad insertions. The second position was replaced by Policy bazaar with 16435 insertions.

Lux Toilet Soap which was continuing to lead the list for the last few weeks, this time reached the third spot with 15555 insertions, as compared to last week's 17,523 impressions.

The fourth and the fifth spot was acquired by Surf Excel and Dettol Toilet Soaps with 13153 and 12806 as insertions respectively.

Other top brands in the pecking order were as follows: Dettol Liquid Soaps, Horlicks, Wheel Active 2 in 1Fair & Lovely and WhatsApp.

Rank	Brands	Insertions
		Week 28
1	DETTOL ANTISEPTIC LIQUID	20970
2	POLICYBAZAAR.COM	16435
3	LUX TOILET SOAP	15555
4	SURF EXCEL EASY WASH	13153
5	DETTOL TOILET SOAPS	12806
6	DETTOL LIQUID SOAP	12244
7	HORLICKS	10513
8	WHEEL ACTIVE 2 IN 1	10390
9	FAIR & LOVELY ADVANCED MULTIVITAMIN	10243
10	WHATSAPP	9886
TOP 10 Brands *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 2+ Individuals, To get this data on your Twitter timeline, tweet with #BarcTweet Top 10 Brands

July 25, 2020

The Big Shift: Where is digital taking the M&E industry?

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: It’s a rainy afternoon in Delhi and 48-year-old homemaker Sunita is looking for recipes for fritters on YouTube on a smartphone she was recently gifted by her husband. She has made fritters a thousand times in her life and she knows the recipe to it by heart, but she likes to watch chefs online to “learn new tricks” for perfecting her already excellent culinary skills. Sometimes, she plugs in the firestick on her smart TV and scrolls through Amazon Prime and Netflix for old movies. Even her evening TV watching has shifted to apps like Hotstar and Voot, which she is still learning to use properly but nevertheless enjoys the ad-free entertainment on demand.

This is not just the story of Sunita, but a whole lot of other people from all age groups and interests. Her husband prefers watching news online rather than switching on the TV channels as it is more comfortable to watch it on his phone, though without earplugs. Their three-year-old grandson is learning his ABCs on yet another mobile app and doesn’t miss his Peppa Pig sessions every evening. And as the never-ending lockdown imposes its dark shadow on his probability to attend physical classes like his parents or grandparents, there are investments being made into paid subscriptions of many educational apps and sites, along with other digital tools.

Digital, as we know, is dominating all aspects of our lives. From grocery shopping to learning, to working out, to dating; everything has found a digital counterpart and in many cases a competition.

The media and entertainment industry is also not untouched from this trend. As per PwC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2019-2023, digital revenues are accounting for a larger share of the industry’s total revenue, year-on-year, starting at 40.7 per cent in 2014 and reaching 55.4 per cent in 2019. It is expected to reach 61.6 per cent in 2023.

India is not far behind from the global trends. In fact, it is one of the top markets to embrace this digital boom. As per EY-FICCI report 2020, digital media overtook filmed entertainment in 2019 to become the third-largest segment of the M&E sector. Digital media grew 31 per cent to reach Rs 221 billion and is expected to grow at 23 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 414 billion by 2022.

“Digital subscription revenues more than doubled from 2018 levels and digital advertising revenues grew to command 24 per cent of total advertising spend. The sector continues to grow at a rate faster than the GDP, driven primarily by growth in subscription-based business models and India’s attractiveness as a content production and post-production destination,” read the report.

The same report suggests that OTT subscription market will approximate 10 per cent of the total TV subscription market by 2020 and there will be over 40 million connected TVs by 2025. And while there is no concrete comparative data to see the growth of digital in comparison to traditional forms of media, there have been many agencies and people claiming that Covid2019 has only accelerated this process. Several reports by bodies like BARC, Nielsen and Kantar have hinted at the increased time spent on digital platforms during the lockdown.

So, is this big shift to digital indicating a slow demise of traditional media?

Swastik Productions MD Rahul Kumar Tewary notes that while digital media has gained traction during the past few months, there is not going to be a takeover of the market space that television enjoys by it. Both the mediums may overlap to a certain extent, but in the end, these are two different market segments.

“I believe digital is growing but TV will remain the same. I don’t think there will be too much of an impact on TV programming. There is a certain age group of consumers for the digital content; there is a trend that the youth of India is moving towards the digital side,” he shares.

Locomotive Global co-founder Sunder Aaron adds, “We will come out of this pandemic at some time and the domination of pay television and the advertisement on pay TV will continue. But it will have a new balance with digital media and digital delivery of content. We still are a country where there is low penetration for digital consumption. Mobile consumption is actually high but if you look at wirelines into households, it’s still very low as compared to the rest of the world. Hopefully, we will see an increase in the wireline broadband penetration over several years and that will be a big game-changer for digital delivery and digital content consumption.”

But are there enough rigid lines between TV and digital anymore? Once, during an interview, someone had asked to define television and the gentleman then went on to elaborate that television is more than the idiot box we knew a few years back. It has camouflaged in a ‘smart box’ now, which also hosts traditional entertainment as well as the modern digital options. It also enables personal chatting and social media apps on the big screen and has a far bigger role to play as a shared screen as well.

And definitely, no one can deny the part of digital technologies in keeping this traditional form of entertainment up. In the past few years, almost all the big GECs and news channels have launched their own apps to keep pace with the digital age. Be it Hotstar, Sony Liv, Voot, or Zee5, all these applications first started as an inventory of television shows and then went on to host original content as well.

All the major telecom players are a part of the revolution as they were in the DTH era. With Airtel launching its own entertainment app and partnering with other OTTs to offer its consumers exclusive access to content, Idea offering live channels on its movies and TV apps and the very popular and Jio announcement Jio TV+ aggregating TV as well as OTT content, digital dominance seems to stay here. Even on the regulators’ side, TRAI recently launched a channel selection app to facilitate easy subscription modifications for users.

Digital technology is now everywhere and that’s what made it possible for the world to continue running even during the strictest of lockdowns for the past few months.

One of the biggest industries to benefit from it has been the online news industry. In an earlier story , Indiantelevision.com wrote on the movement of mainstream journalists like Vikram Chandra and Faye D’Souza to digital content curation. It showed how the democratic environment that digital offers as a medium allows journalists to be more true and free to express themselves. The added technological features and better reach are cherries on the top.

While Chandra admitted of being heavily reliant on AI-based execution of his editorial functions and being in advanced-level talks with some of the OTT players to push his content, Pankaj Pachauri said, “GoNews has been successfully able to converge satellite TV technology with digital technology as our product can be uplinked on any satellite channel digitally for broadcast. We have tried and tested this technology during the last general elections with APN news for its prime time broadcast,” highlighting the vast roles digital technologies are playing there.

All this, undoubtedly, has opened up the gates to great opportunities for digital marketers. Most of the functions of an agency have turned data-driven and are claiming to provide a never-attained-before hyper-targeted reach to advertisers.

Digitalkites sr. VP Amit Lall, a few weeks back, discussed s the ability of marketers to follow a consumer’s journey not just across platforms but also devices to provide them with a seamless experience and help advertisers understand user behaviour better.

Madison Media & OOH group CEO told Indiantelevision.com on Media Minds 2 that the entire digital renaissance has been a big part of his successful five-year-long journey at the agency, thus far. He shared that the share of digital in agency billings has increased from two to three per cent to 20-22 per cent in this time.

And this digital intervention is not only helping the programmatic, SEO, search, social and other digital aspects of marketing but also helping traditional options to be more targeted and improved. The whole lot of data collection that is done via digital media is used to chart out trajectories for mainline campaigns.

Additionally, the oldest mainline medium of traditional advertising, out-of-home (OOH), has begun its digital journey, again pushed by the Covid2019 lockdown.

Eyetalk Media Ventures MD Gautam Bhirani says, “Fuelled by technological advancements as more devices connect with the power of internet-of-things, location-based mobile data can bridge the gap between digital-physical worlds and converging them can give us holistic consumer insights. As we adapt to the pandemic induced lifestyle changes often termed as ‘The New Normal’, it is constantly impacting consumer behaviour, sentiment and journey which makes it imperative for us to learn and integrate these learnings in OOH planning. Detailed analysis of mobile data that determine brand affinity, interests, preferences, income size, gender, commute patterns, dwell time in the online and offline world can help identify locations for OOH placement and mobile device IDs can be used to retarget the consumer.”

Laqshya Media Group CEO Atul Shrivastava adds his own experience, “Our transformation from an OOH to a multi-media conglomerate has followed a carefully coordinated strategy of delivering the most optimised consumer-contact solution to our clients by combining digital, OOH and experiential. In order to make our OOH and experiential offerings more interactive, we added a digital marketing company to our network, which gives us the bandwidth to offer our clients an unbeatable offline-online combination.”

Digital dominance is clearly shaping up a distinct world, dominating the media and entertainment industry. While there are high chances that traditional platforms will survive this big shift, one can look forward to redefined versions of televisions and newspapers.

(With inputs from Anjali Thakur and Shikha Singh)

July 24, 2020
News consumption declines from the highs of lockdown weeks

BENGALURU: News consumption has been declining in the past few weeks from the highs of the COVID2019 weeks according to the BARC-Nielsen Reports. Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) and information, data and measurement company Nielsen or BARC-Nielsen have used the average consumption between Weeks 2 and 4 of 2020 as the yardstick to compare the growth of television consumption in the weeks starting Week 11 of 2020 onward. Of the four major genres that together garner 90 percent of television consumption in India – GEC, Movies, News and the Kids genre, News is the third most consumed genre.

During the lockdown weeks that commenced midweek 12 of 2020, television was one of the most important and credible sources of what was happening for a world that was just grappling with the concept of a true new global pandemic that was to change the way of life to the many living generations of humanity. Life as most knew changed forever as social distancing became one of the new normals. Man is a social animal – a true cliché, now humanity had to relearn how to continue being so and at the same time not come too close to other humans. A majority of humans worked from home, stayed at home and television along with the internet became the two biggest sources of news and entertainment. Theater, restaurants, resorts, hotels, malls, public places, places for recreation, parks, gardens, tourist places were shut down, production of new entertainment content stopped. News was the new currency for ‘drama’ as channels beamed content that showed how the challenges posed by the pandemic ware being faced in different geographies. Heartening stories of the survivors of the virus, of the people, the COVID2019 warriors who made life bearable for the rest of us were aired across news channels. Prime minister Narendra Modi’s speeches drew never before imagined eyeballs to the news channels that aired them ‘live’. Slowly humans started to know more and more of the devil that forced them to stay at home.

Overtime, as humans understood more and more about the pandemic, the initial training that the lockdowns imparted began to be a part of the new normal, nations including India, started to open up once again, to unlock. Many people returned to work, television consumption in terms of minutes, average time spent and reach has been declining from the highs of the lockdown weeksas did news consumption. There were a few blips when television news did see viewership increase – this was in week 24 of 2020 when Indians were hit with two big blows on consecutive days – June 14 of 2020 saw the death by suicide of the very popular Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, which was followed by the Galwan Valley attack on 15 June.

Please refer to the figure below that shows consumption share of the top 4 genres up to Week 26 of 2020.

The Hindi News genre in the Hindi Speaking Market or HSM has significant viewership. News consumption in the four South Indian languages of Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu spoken in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Telangana respectively is quite high. BARC defines HSM as all India minus the states where these four South Indian languages have evolved. BARC publishes data in the public domain of the Top 5 News channels in Hindi in HSM, English (all India), Assamese (Assam / North East / Sikkim(U+R)); Bangla (West Bengal), Kannada (Karnataka), Malayalam (Kerala), Marathi (Maharashtra & Goa), Oriya (Odisha), Tamil (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), Telugu (AP and Telangana). The demographics in the all the cases as of Week 17 of 2020 are 2+ in that particular market. Begore Week 17 of 2020, BARC published data for different demographics in the case of Hindi and English News in the public domain, hence the charts below show data from Week 17 of 2020 onward.

The figure below shows that consumption of the top 5 Hindi News channels and the South Indian languages has been declining.

Consumption of the Top 5 News channels in the regional languages has also been declining. Marathi News had the highest consumption in Maharashtra and Goa as compared to the other languages news channels in their respective territories, Mumbai, the financial capital and the capital of Bollywood is in Maharashtra were impacted by the two events in Week 24 of 2020 as is obvious from the graph below.

English News consumption has also been declining over the past few weeks and the trend would have continued, but for data for the Arnab Goswami led Republic TV which seems to have bucked the trend in week 24 of 2020. Despite the combined weekly impressions of the Top 5 English News channels in Week 27 of 2020 declining versus Week 26, Republic TV, which heads the genre, saw viewership increase 7.2 percent during the same period.

Please refer to the figure below for consumption trends of the Top 5 English News channels.

New GEC content production commenced in a few places after Unlock 1.0 came into force. Hindi content production has commenced in the previous week. OTT platforms such as Netflix have announced premieres of a lot of new entertainment content. This is sure to take away the viewership from News channels, more so during primetime. However, the world will never be the same.

July 20, 2020
NBA Board writes to BARC demanding details of TV9 tampering inquiry

NEW DELHI: Further to last week's mega controversy around the viewership data of TV9 Bharatvarsh released by BARC, NBA has now written to the chairman of the industry body demanding the details of the inquiry.

In a press statement, NBA president has drawn his attention to several news reports about videos of a sting operation, as purported proof of tampering of panel homes by TV9 Bharatvarsh and response by BARC that it carried out a detailed investigation into the compromised homes and the manipulation of data.

The letter reads, "NBA is rather surprised to note from the news reports that BARC has so quickly investigated into the sting operation and also passed a judgement that those who appeared in those videos were “paid to say what they did” and the videos are “fake”. NBA desires to know who conducted the investigation? Since the allegations were against BARC, NBA presumes that the investigation was conducted by a third party. NBA would like BARC to share this investigation report with NBA to help understand how the investigations were concluded so quickly that there was no tampering of data and the videos are fake."

It highlights that a proper investigation is crucial in the light of the fact that the allegations are against an organisation (TV9 Bharatvarsh), which by BARC's own admission, has a dubious past. "It has a history of indulging in such malpractices and for which the ratings of TV9 Telugu were suspended. Was this record made available to the investigators?"

President, NBA has sought an urgent response with the details of the investigation report.

July 16, 2020
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:

July 15, 2020
TV9 Bharatvarsh CEO Barun Das fires back at NBA

MUMBAI: The young and wiry-looking Barun Das is in a pretty belligerent mood. The CEO of Associated Broadcast Networks that runs the No 2 news channel in India TV9 Bharatvarsh has responded to the allegations that have been hurled against its meteoric rise by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) to the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).

In a release issued today, Das has stated that the NBA’s reasoning about TV9 Baratvarsh’s rise in ratings possibly reveals “a lack of basic understanding of the television news business. The fundamental reason behind our success is a concerted strategy of content, distribution and promotion aided by the astronomical rise in viewership during the early weeks of the lockdown.”

Das has added in the release that the NBA is incorrectly giving “credence to anonymous WhatsApp videos and messages doing the rounds to defame the TV9 network. These videos have already been dismissed as fake by BARC as per media reports. The network has already lodged an official complaint against this with the Telangana police.”

According to Das, there is no question of TV9 rigging viewership numbers as it was he who wrote to the NBA to suspend the viewership measurement of news channels on 22 March, two days before the lockdown, so that lives of journalists and camera persons would not be impacted by the coronavirus in the quest for ratings by the news channels.

His request was turned down by the NBA committee. “Now that TV9 Bharatvarsh has garnered the biggest share of the market during the pandemic, obviously the shoe is on the other foot,” he says.

Das has questioned if the NBA through these efforts is trying to coerce him to renew his membership of the association. “After much persuasion, we chose not to renew it in June and one month later we are in the NBA’s bad books,” he has alleged in the press release.

The 50-year-old executive who has seen many a battle in his previous associations with media companies such as Zee News, ABP News and India Today has said there are some allegations which the NBA has made against the TV9 network which are defamatory and they will be addressed in an appropriate manner very soon.

Earlier in the day, the NBA officially sent out a release asking third party intervention into BARC to investigate any hanky panky associated with TV9 Bharatvarsh’s sudden rise.

On 14 July, Das also got into a conversation with Indiantelevision.com group founder, CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari on all things related to news television and the current controversy.

You can watch the fireside chat here:

July 15, 2020