New Delhi: Public broadcaster Doordarshan happened to be one of the major beneficiaries of BARC India’s rural data as the same has created a many surprising twists and turns in the Indian Broadcasting Industry.
Doordarshan has claimed that it has emerged as the most watched Hindi channel in terms of time spent per viewer ahead of top General Entertainment Channels.
The “monumental development” comes in as Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) released the much awaited All India viewership data, which includes rural India, for the very first time, a statement released by Doordarshan said.
“DD National, the flagship channel of the network, registered an Average Time Spent of 51 Min per viewer, highest among Hindi GECs, in the week 41 as per BARC ratings,” the statement said.
This indicates that after tuning to the channel, viewers preferred to continuously watch it for a longer duration of time rather than frequently switching the channels, as compared to other GECs, it added.
According to the data, the channel’s gross viewership in lakhs (GVL) rose from 479.9 lakhs in week 40 to a massive 4040.5 lakh in week 41, it added.
The channel also witnessed a significant rise in ratings and moved up to the 7th position in Hindi Speaking Markets in the week 41, according to the data, the statement said.
Of the total 153.5 million TV households, representing All India and all modes of signal, 77.5 million are urban TV households and 76 million are rural TV households, it added.
It may be noted that Prasar Bharati was eagerly awaiting the release of Rural data from BARC India and in fact it was pressurizing BARC India to speed up the process.
