Tag: Nielsen

TV consumption up by 37% in week 12 due to COVID-19 lockdown: BARC India & Nielsen

MUMBAI: As India went into a lockdown mode due to COVID-19, people have upped their TV viewing time, as per the latest information from Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) and Nielsen. Total TV consumption in week 12 grew by 37 per cent compared to the previous week.

Weekly TV viewing minutes have gone up from 887 billion viewing minutes to 1215 billion. The average time spent per viewer has also witnessed a growth of 23 per cent from three hours, 46 minutes to four hours 39 minutes. The number of channels watched by viewers in week 12 has seen a growth of 38 per cent from 16 channels to 22 channels.

Last week when BARC India and Nielsen presented the data on COVID-19’s impact on TV and digital viewership, it highlighted growth of eight per cent in the total TV consumption in week 11.

In week 12, viewership grew significantly post the lockdown, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (25 to 27 March). HSM witnessed the highest growth in viewership. Even male viewership recorded significant growth and the viewing minutes saw a growth of 41 per cent.

Genre-wise, news and movies witnessed three times more growth. News genre grew by 298 per cent; business news grew by 180 per cent, infotainment by 63 per cent and movies by 56 per cent.

April 2, 2020
Regional news channels see sharp rise in viewership during Covid-19

MUMBAI: There is a temporary shift in TV viewership patterns as Indians are forced to stay inside their homes due to the lock-down courtesy Covid-19, according to the latest BARC-Nielsen report. It shows that regional news channels are gaining viewership.

While Marathi news consumption was up by 101 per cent, that of Tamil grew by 84 per cent. While Oriya news consumption was up by 78 per cent, Malayalam and Bangla news consumption grew by 75 per cent each.

While Gujarati news consumption witnessed a growth of 61 per cent, that of Kannada was up by 47 per cent. Whereas Telugu news consumption grew by 21 per cent, that of Punjabi was up by 16 per cent, and English news consumption grew by 39 per cent.

This is good news given that Hindi news dominates otherwise. Hindi news consumption was up by 62 per cent with the daily average time spent (ATS) up by 17 per cent. The daily average reach witnessed a growth of 34 per cent and the weekly impressions was up by 57 per cent.

The overall growth of the entire news industry was 57 per cent with daily average reach up by 34 per cent. Daily average time spent on total news is also up by 17 per cent.

With people clamouring for more information, news is the primary destination for a lot of Indians. Which is why prime minister Narendra Modi’s national address on 24 March addressing the country about the 21-day lockdown had 197 million viewers. They were watching the PM through 201 news channels with a total of 3891 million minutes of viewing.

It’s not only television where the news genre witnessed a huge increase in the viewership number; it grew on digital platforms as well. News apps saw eight per cent more users per week with an increase of 17 per cent in time spent per user per week. News websites were explored by 26 per cent more users. Additionally, the number of visits to a website by a user went up by 29 per cent. Clearly, all of them are seeking news on Covid-19.

There was a 30 per cent jump in the news consumption in mini-metros; metro cities witnessed 12 per cent growth whereas growth in tier I and tier II cities was up by 14 per cent. As per the BARC-Nielsen report, the top 20 news apps witnessed 30 per cent increase in time spent. News aggregators saw a growth of 22 per cent and news apps saw 76 per cent increase.

BARC also reported that even kids between the age group of two years to 14 years consumed 83 per cent of news. This is likely due to co-viewing with parents.

March 27, 2020
13% upsurge in advertising FCT during Covid-19: BARC-Nielsen report

NEW DELHI: The global Covid-19 pandemic has been hitting businesses across the globe hard. It was being estimated that the trickledown effect will eventually find its way in the advertising industry as well. But if the latest BARC Nielsen report is to be believed, that might really not be the case.

Despite many channels being unable to air new episodes because of canned shootings, advertisers haven’t withdrawn their FCTs back. As per the report, there has been a 13 per cent spike in advertising FCT in the corona period, week starting 14 March as compared to the time period between 11 and 31 January (termed as the pre-corona period).

The highest spike of 147 per cent, as expected, was recorded by social advertisements. Following categories were banking and finance sector (47 per cent rise), food and beverages (36 per cent rise), and services (22 per cent rise)

However, several categories witnessed a dip in the advertising FCT. Surprisingly, personal healthcare went down by 29 per cent. Auto and hair care went down by 17 per cent and seven per cent respectively.

March 27, 2020
Nielsen’s consumer attitude insights on streaming video

MUMBAI: Streaming video is becoming increasingly crucial for Indian legacy broadcasters, as GenZ continues to spend an increasing amount of time on video apps, watching their favourite shows. But the business is not easy, burning away ginormous amounts of capital. Customer acquisition is expensive, and keeping them engaged even more so. Viu is one of the first casualties in this space, having exited from its India play.

Hence, any user studies – no matter from which part of the world – are useful to get some insights into how the customer is reacting to the plethora of choices on offer. Recently, US-based research agency launched Streaming Wars – a special edition of its Nielsen Total Audience Report.

The report revealed that US consumers in OTT-capable homes are spending 19 per cent (nearly one fifth) of their TV time streaming content, be it through ad-supported or paid subscription models.

“That’s a hefty amount of the already large media diet of audiences today, especially considering that the medium has only existed for a relatively short period of time. Not to mention, it’s a prime opportunity to easily reach consumers in the digital age, using interfaces that feel familiar and comfortable to them,” the report has advised.

Nielsen has also noted that 60 per cent of Americans subscribe to more than one subscription video on demand service and 93 per cent of them have stated that they will increase or keep their existing streaming service.

American consumers like the rest of the world, lay a great emphasis on price; in fact, it is the single most important attribute for a quality streaming service, Nielsen’s report highlights. In fact, when asked about what made them cancel a paid video subscription service, 42 per cent said they didn’t use it enough to justify the cost.

User-friendly interactivity plays a key role for streaming services and ranked second in consumer importance. Frustrating user experiences or hard to navigate interfaces may not bode well when it comes to subscriber retention, especially when the internet has cultivated a culture of convenience and consumers have a bevvy of other media choices available to them. Of course, content is also of major importance for consumers, as the variety and availability of it placed in the top three of video streaming attributes, Nielsen reported.

While there are myriad attributes that make a streaming service attractive to users, the content is what ultimately gets them to type out their credit card number and hit “Enter.” The top four reasons as to why survey participants decided to subscribe to additional streaming services were all content-based, with the top reason being to expand the content that they had available.

Content has always been king, but with the growth of streaming, content creators and rights owners are effectively given more power. Platforms must be able to maintain the programs that audiences want while offering compelling new ones to keep them interested. Wherever good content goes, subscribers will follow. When that content runs out, don’t be surprised when some of the subscribers do too: 20 per cent of consumers said they cancelled a service after watching all the content that they were interested in.

The Nielsen report revealed that Netflix is the numero uno in the streaming space, with it accounting for 31 per cent of American consumers, YouTube was number two with 21 per cent, Hulu no three, with 12 per cent, Amazon No 4, with eight per cent. The remaining 28 per cent was accounted for by the rest of the streaming services.

February 12, 2020
BARC exhorts TRAI to strengthen existing TV audience measurement system

MUMBAI: Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), the country’s premier TV audience data measurer, has suggested to the Indian regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that having more multiple measurement and ratings mechanisms may not be “advisable” and could create confusion. Instead, it was better to invest further in the existing currency with the goal to make it more robust.

“Having more than one ratings service/currency would not be in the interests of industry, and, hence is not desirable. Instead of increasing number of ratings agencies, it would be advisable to invest in the existing system and make it even more robust and accurate,” BARC India has said in its submission to a consultation paper on TV audience measurement overhaul floated by the TRAI.

Making a case to further boost the functioning of BARC India, the organisation has said steps were needed to be taken to “increase the sample/panel through cost effective technologies” like sample return path data (SRPD).

“TV viewership measurement systems across most mature markets are carried out by a single agency. The existence of more than one rating agencies (and currency) will create confusion and will lead to inefficiency in the market. When there are more than one data sets for a same set of channels, it leads to ambiguity,” BARC India has argued.

TRAI had floated a consultation paper on ‘Review of Television Audience Measurement and Ratings in India’ on 3 December 2018 seeking feedback from stakeholders with a view to examine various aspects of the system, which is presently done by BARC India that is a joint venture amongst three industry organisations — the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA). The original deadline for making submissions was extended on request from the stakeholders.

Arguing against promoting more competition in the audience measurement eco-system, BARC India has cited international media reports relating to this particular issue in the Philippines.
“Philippines presents a typical example of confusion and ambiguity in market due to presence of more than one measurement agency. TV measurement in the Philippines is conducted by Kantar Media Philippines and AGB Nielsen Media Research Philippines. Data produced by the two companies are often used by competing channels to claim leadership,” BARC India has argued.

Pointing out that accuracy of data can be ensured through larger panel that can, inter alia, be sustained by industry, BARC India has tried to put things in context by highlighting the US TV industry sustains a panel of 108900 individuals with a TV adex of $68 billion, while in India BARC India “runs a panel of 135,000 individuals with adex of approximately $4 billion”.

However, for a more robust system to be in place, which will also strengthen BARC India, the organisation has said “regulatory and government support” was essential and the support should involve “mandating digital platform operators (DTH and cable), as well as TV OEM manufacturers (of smart TV sets), to share return path data from samples to measurement provider”.

“To make data more accurate, there are steps required that go beyond the remit and domain of BARC. Legal and punitive framework to weed out panel tampering will go a long way in building further acceptance of our data,” BARC India has stated, reiterating its position on been backed by some legal teeth to fight attempts of data infiltrations and manipulation.

While admitting that a high-tech landscape like audience measurement needed to constantly evolve as newer consumption and distribution modes and technologies were emerging (for example, digital consumption, proliferation of OTT platforms, etc), BARC India has made it clear it was exploring SRPD, second generation metre with newer detection techniques, and other technological solutions for TV measurement.

“BARC India has also made progress in building capability to measure digital consumption with the goal of providing industry with cross platform and cross device video consumption: linear and time shifted, broadcast and digital. We have a strong foundation, established credibility and necessary transparency and accountability framework on which we can build further with emerging and suitable technologies,” the measurement organisation stated.

February 21, 2019
BARC India exhorts TRAI to ‘empower’ it as digital measurer

MUMBAI: In a smart move that could lead to further enhancing of its credibility and importance, Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC India) has exhorted Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to “empower” it to be the uniform measurer of audience and other data related to TV, and OTT and digital platforms.

“BARC, which provides significant granular measurement data on television, if empowered by this Hon’ble authority, shall provide unbiased and accurate measurement data on contents broadcasted, streamed, re-transmitted, downloaded and shared in OTT platforms. The outcome of the above will lead to one single robust measurement report for television, OTT and digital platforms,” the Indian measurement organisation has said in its submission on TRAI’s consultation paper on regulatory framework for OTT communication services.

Interestingly, while BARC India’s commitment to roll out digital media measurement services Ekam is a work in progress, the present TRAI consultation paper is more focussed on OTT voice or communications services like WhatsApp, Facebook’s Messenger and similar Indian products like Hike. However, it must be made clear here that many of the over 80 submissions from diverse stakeholders, including big TV companies like Star India and Zee, do dwell on video OTT and possibilities relating to regulations.

Quoting from the Mobile Eco-system and Ad-sizing Report 2018 that highlights India has 250 million registered online video viewers, 100 million OTT viewers and that viewing of video content increased by 75 per cent in recent times, BARC India drives home the point if the contents streamed, viewed, retransmitted and downloaded on OTT services “are measured and rated” by it, “more transparency in the digital eco-system” would follow.

Highlighting the many strengths of the system and technology that the organisation presently employs and deploys, BARC India has submitted: “The OTT platforms prevail in the mobile and virtual worlds, which allow advertisers to easily and efficiently target well-defined groups or even individual consumers across various mediums…Hence, it is imminent to regulate, analyse and derive audience measurement system on OTT platforms.”

Although several global agencies like comScore, Nielsen, App Annie and SimilarWeb provide third-party analytics on OTT platforms, the Indian industry lacks a credible and neutral measurement agency, it has been contended. As digital ad spends increase gradually, proper data analytics will offer additional opportunity to advertisers and clients to compare the effectiveness of media spends amongst various distribution platforms.

BARC India, which has successfully set up a transparent, accurate, and inclusive TV audience measurement system that’s built upon a robust and future-ready technology backbone, while strengthening its case to measure and analyse the digital realm, has added the “big data and insights” generated by it presently powers “efficient media spends and content decisions” in a highly dynamic and growing television sector of India.

With a panel that is currently being scaled up to 180,000 individuals, BARC India is also the largest measurement company of its kind in the world.

January 14, 2019
TVision technology will complement BARC India’s data: Yan Liu

MUMBAI: Star TV has partnered with TVision, a company which measure actual eyes on screen attention providing advertisers, agencies and television networks with the second-by-second data required to understand the effectiveness of television advertising and programming. The company would mostly be focusing on major sports shows on Sony Pictures Network (SPN) India’s and Star India’s sports cluster for the pilot run of the service.

According to TVision co-founder and CEO Yan Liu, TV still plays a very important role in India and the market is growing quickly. “Usually the advertising spends accounts for 1.5-2 per cent of the GDP no matter which country, but the GDP of India is growing quickly. On top of that the consumer is adapting to new formats like OTT very quickly,” he says.

He thinks that the Indian market is very interesting and has high potential and wants to continue to invest in the Indian market, partnering with Star TV to launch the service by early 2019 in the country.

Liu says, “In pretty much every market, as a Nielsen, Kantar IMRB and BARC India, they run TV rating service but for us, rating service is more like a quantity. It’s how many TVs tune in to that show. It is important, but let’s be honest, when we talk about TV, a lot of time we are not really watching the screen, we are doing something else. So the other part of the formula we think is audience attention. If you are a brand and spend money on the TV, ultimately you want to make sure that you have audience attention.”

Liu points out that if you just want to measure the tune-in on screen that’s only half of the formula, which is quantity. You also need to understand the quality of the show which is attention. That is why they think that the service is complementary to BARC India. It’s on top of what BARC India offers. BARC can capture quantity and their attention index can be used side-by-side with the TV rating.

“In the US and Japan, the technology has grown from HD then 4K and 8K. What we found was that the higher quality of content leads to higher engagement of the show. So we think that this is a very big thing for big TV networks like Star TV that continues to push HD channels,” he adds.

The testing of the product has started with Star TV and overall there is no issue apart from some technical challenges like non-stable electricity. As the product is in testing the sample size is very small of just a couple of hundreds. The product will kick off by launching in Mumbai and New Delhi.

“For the live TV, 80 per cent of the top rated shows are sports already in the US. So for the live TV, we definitely believe that sport is going to be the strongest genre. Brands will also benefit from the technology as they will get to engage with a highly attentive audience to make sure they are commercially effective,” he concludes.

November 12, 2018
Ipsos hires Sreyoshi Maitra for senior leadership position in Delhi

MUMBAI: Ipsos, world’s third largest market research company has hiredSreyoshi Maitrain a senior leadership position,as part of its Delhi Cluster. Designated Executive Director, she will also lead the Shopper Practice for Ipsos India and will report to Krishnendu Duttawho leads the Delhi cluster for Ipsos.

Maitra moves from MRSS and has previously held senior level positions with Nielsen, Kantar IMRB and Kantar Milward Brown. Her expertise coversa vast number of areas in both Consumer and Shopper behavior, and also ROI on Channel spends.

Her remit is for key Ipsos clients in Delhi and NCR, though for Shopper Practice her repertoire of clients would extend across geographies of India.

Settling into her new role with one of the fastest growing MR companies in India, Sreyoshi says: “Ipsos isyoung and dynamic organization with a basket of compelling solutions. I look forward to partnering clients in their journey to uncover uncommon consumer insights and building stronger brands which are relevant to their audiences.”

Krishnendu Dutta, Delhi Cluster Lead for Ipsos commented, “With her wealth of domain expertise and experience, Sreyoshi will play a key role in deepening our relationship with clients, further bolstering our position in the market.”

Maitra actively speaks at industry forums like Instore Asia, Asia Retail Congress, among others.

She holds a PGDM degree in Marketing from IMI and is a BA Economics graduate from Jadavpur University.

Additionally, she has done a Digital Marketing Certification Program from MICA.

September 20, 2018
Digital media spends to increase by 49 per cent next year: Nielsen Report

MUMBAI: A Nielson report has now confirmed what many believed of the growing ad spends in the digital world. The study has found that digital ad spends have now eclipsed traditional marketing budgets of brands. The report also says increase in digital media budgets are poised to jump considerably over the next 12 months. However, over the top (OTT)services have to go a long way to win over marketer.

The responses for the report were gathered through in-depth interviews of marketers and extensive surveys of marketing executives from across verticals. The goal was to identify their most valued digital media channels categorised as social media, search, mobile, programmatic, OTT-TV/Connected TV(CTV).

Important digital media channels

Social media and search engines are considered extremely important by marketers . 79 per cent of respondents ranked search as “very” or “extremely” important, while 73 per cent thought the same about social media. A large majority also considered online video (64 per cent) and email (59 per cent) to be critical.

Surprisingly, while a bunch of OTT platforms are mushrooming worldwide, marketers showed least reliance for OTT or Connected TV (CTV). Fewer than 8per cent of respondents considered it extremely important (and 18 per cent very important) at this point. Nearly 25 per cent of respondents ranked it as “not so” important or “not at all” important to their current media strategy.

Effectiveness of digital media channels for business:

Other than zeroing in on the most important digital channels, the report also found effectiveness of each of these digital media channels. Again, search (68 per cent), social media (68per cent) and mobile (59 per cent) were ranked as “very” or “extremely” effective by a large section of respondents.

Only 28 per cent of marketers ranked OTT TV/CTV as a “very” or “extremely” effective channel, the lowest among the individual categories. Over 30 per cent of respondents have yet to dedicate media budget to OTT TV/CTV. Over time when these channels will be more established, that number may decrease.

“We are moving more and more toward [digital] marketing…social, search and [display] advertising driven. But we have just begun so the confidence in results is still being analyzed,” the report quoted one anonymous respondent.

“Respondents reported digital media as representing 37.6 per cent of total advertising spend. This is remarkably similar to the percentage of advertising budget dedicated to traditional media (when calculated the same way), which was only a percentage point off at 36.6per cent,” the report read.

However, the next 12 months are going to be very different. 82 per cent of respondents agreed that digital media spend is going to increase, with only 4 per cent forecasting a decrease. Respondents expect a 49 per cent increase in digital media budgets in the next 12 months, with some even suggesting a higher spike.

June 15, 2018
Nielsen on changing landscape of global sports

MUMBAI: The global sports industry is undergoing more disruption than ever as a result of ongoing shifts in media consumption, the emergence of new technologies and a rapidly evolving sponsorship market.

Nielsen Holding, a global measurement and data analytics company released a report on the top five global sports industry trends. It found that the big tectonic movements like the rise of digital media, esports and diversity are setting off many smaller ripples of activity such as the rise of short-form video, content-led esports sponsorship and new women’s sports formats.

The top five trends noted by Nielsen are distribution disruption, esports evolution, content rules, sponsorship and partnership and sports in our changing society.

In the distribution disruption, the single biggest question for the sports business today is whether media rights revenues will hold up as the traditional TV business is disrupted. Star India is a very good example for the disruption in traditional TV business. The broadcaster invested around Rs 22,000 crore in a span of eight months to acquire IPL, the biggest domestic cricketing league and the BCCI media rights.

Other significant effects of disruption include consolidation among traditional media companies. Several large media companies are seeking greater scale in revenue, geographical and programming terms, partly in order to compete with the tech giants.

Esports globally has grown suddenly in the past couple of years. The percentage of fans that started following esports in countries like Japan, France, the UK, Germany and the US are 39, 34, 34, 30 and 29 respectively within the last year.

The combined e-sports and gaming market is estimated to be Rs 3900 crore with more than 2000 teams consistently participating in tournaments across India and abroad with over 50 crore players worldwide. U Sports, one of the newly formed sports business companies in India, launched U Cypher, the country’s first multi-platform, multi-game esport championship.

E-sports has been announced as a medal event in the 2022 Asian games seeing its rapid growth. It is moving from being a hobby to an actual career option.

‘Content is king’ is the third trend in the list. Attention spans are shortening and competing for consumer attention is rising. This trend, perhaps reflects the ongoing rise of over-the-top (OTT) streaming solutions across a variety of private platforms, in particular social media, and media consumption trending towards mobile, bite-sized and on-demand content.

The likes of Facebook and Amazon and the life-or-death value of live sports to pay-TV should maintain rights fee growth for premium properties.

The rise of the smartphone, coupled with the expansion of high-speed internet connections in many countries, has seen consumption habits shift ‘inevitably and irreversibly’ away from linear programming and towards on-demand mobile content.

Sponsorships are continuing to evolve into richer, two-way relationships. The market had already been trending in this direction, but today the most successful sponsorships truly are proper partnerships. In the new sponsorship paradigm, audience data, compelling content and connection to business objectives are the winning traits, according to the report.

In India, ground advertising saw growth from Rs 6400 crore in 2016 to Rs 7300 crore in 2017.

In last year’s trends, Nielsen reports said “Social responsibility is becoming more prevalent and impactful.” This year, the relationship between sport and society is changing faster than ever, and staying on top of that change has become even more important.

Overall, 66 per cent of the consumers are willing to pay more for brands committed to positive social and environmental impact. If we bifurcate it age-wise then 72 per cent of consumers are below 20, 75 per cent are under 34 and 51 per cent are between 50-64.

Women’s sports continues to grow in focus for rights holders, brands and media. The sector is booming as the growth opportunity represented by under-engaged females is recognised, as brands demand a focus on women’s sports and gender equality takes greater prominence.

It isn’t just in developed markets that women’s sports is gaining traction. Last year saw the remarkable opening of sports stadia to women in Saudi Arabia, the inaugural CAF Women’s Football Symposium, and Harmanpreet Kaur becoming India’s first female cricketer to secure a bat sponsorship, among other milestones.

The year also saw exciting launches of new women’s properties, such as the UK’s Tyrrells Premier 15s rugby union competition and Australia’s AFLW. And the 2018 Winter Olympics offered great opportunities for storytelling around female athletes. Stakeholders like the US broadcaster NBC obliged, putting the likes of Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin center stage in their promotional coverage.

The next big thing can be that the tech giants will increasingly challenge traditional sports media and increased competition will force higher fees for some premium content.

The esports market can possibly take a cue from traditional sports by adopting similar revenue-generating models and creative content will be key for successful esports sponsorships.

The content rule for the right holders will play an important role in the future and they will explore ways of monetising the new types of content, through sponsorship and subscription products. As the quality, volume and variety of content increase, it will be harder and harder to cut through.

Sponsorships will become more flexible and tailored, and will include more value-in-kind. Rights holders will invest more in digital content and activation capabilities, in order to engage fans, collect data and service sponsors.

Women’s sports will continue to grow, but properties will have to work harder as the marketplace becomes more crowded. Spending will increase on sponsorship campaigns that exhibit brands’ credentials on diversity, sustainability and other social issues.

Also Read :

Sports sponsorship in 2017 up by 14%: SportzPower-GroupM report

IPL 2018: Team sponsorship deals may see an uptick

May 19, 2018