The pandemic of Covid-19 has forced upon a lot of changes in the consumption behaviour of the Indian TV viewing audience. According to BARC India’s viewership data for week 12, Hindi News channels have seen tremendous growth both in average impressions and reach, that too on a week-on-week basis.
Refer to the table that highlights average impressions in MN for Hindi News channels in the Hindi Speaking Markets. AajTak has witnessed a whopping 361% growth from week 9 to week 12. Such staggering growth is not only in AajTak’s case but even other channels such as ABP News which from Week 11 to Week 12 has grown by 263 Mn impressions; its week 12 over week 9 growth is a 336% increase.
Republic Bharat too has grown by a huge percentage of 246% from 138 Mn impressions in week 11 to 340 Mn impressions in Week 12. Similarly News 18 India has grown by 222% in the same span of four weeks like the rest of the channels. Such numbers come on the back of the brilliant contribution of news channels to the country’s fight against Covid-19 by constantly providing news and information about the pandemic and urging its viewers to stay indoors and safe.
The average reach of the Hindi News Genre too has increased over 100%. Republic Bharat and ABP News have seen a similar increase in reach of 121% over a period of four weeks from week 09 to week 12 of 2020. Hindi news channels are being watched by everyone in the household from kids to their grandparents hence cutting across age groups. India TV too has seen an over 100% increase in reach which is phenomenal.
GECs Face Turbulence
The growth of one genre leads to de-growth of another genre. The usual winners of the ratings race, which are the GECs have been experiencing some turbulence in their ratings. This turbulence though seems to be temporary however may prolong until the country defeats Covid-19 and life comes back to normalcy.
In terms of Average weekly impressions from week 09 to week 12 FTA Channel Dangal has de-grown by 4% whereas Colors TV by 11%, Star Plus by 27% and Zee TV by 36%. Sony Entertainment Television and SONY SAB continue to remain in the positives with SET growing by 4% and SONY SAB growing by 16%.
