During his presentation in the recently concluded FICCI Frames 2018, BARC India’s CEO Partho Das Guptha had released a report on “The Changing Face of TV in India” that unveils many interesting facts on the changing television viewership and the factors affecting the viewership in India.
With this knowledge empowering piece, tvnews4u.com intends to offers a brief outlook in to the scenario of TV Viewership in India and factors contributing to its continuing growth.
The report has unveiled the current TV Viewership figures with average time spent. It is understood that the Southern states have contributed substantially to the TV viewership when compared to the rest of the HSM ( Hindi Speaking Market).
Out of the total daily tune- in on TV of 566 million, 191 million viewership comes from South which is almost one third of the total TV Viewership of the country. The remaining 375 million viewership rises from the HSM.
In terms of the time spent by the viewers on TV, Viewers in South Regional markets spend higher time on TV than viewers in HSM. The report reveals that South viewers spend 04:09:25 on an average before their TV sets everyday against HSM viewers spending an avg of 03:31:36 daily on TV.
Some of the major factors that influence TV viewership:
The report has listed out a set of factors that influence continuing growth of Television viewership in India that includes Distribution, Availability of content, Sports genre, World Television Premiere, Supply of electricity, Weather conditions, Festival & Public holidays, Migration, Literacy , Role of women and Local habits.
The same has been briefed in detail as following:
Distribution:
Distribution has seen playing a very prominent role in TV viewership as the report shows that the a brief comparison of the number of FTA and pay channels in 2015 and 2017. While FTA channels have grown by 74% in these two years, a growth of 14% is seen in pay channels. the viewership of pay channels has been 77% in 2015 and has dropped to 69% in 2017. With increasing number of FTA channels, viewers preference has also gone up from 23% to 31% in 2017.
Availability of Regional content:
The availability of regional content has been a boon to the media industry in many ways. This has also influenced the TV viewership to a greater extent. Viewers have expressed their interest towards regional content of TV and have preferred watching TV in the vernacular languages. The overall growth of the viewership is 32 % in 2017 against 2016. Languages like Gujarati & Assamese have contributed lion’s share to the overall growth, followed by other regional languages like Marathi, Bangla, Oriya and so on..
Surge in Sports Content:
In the sports genre, while cricket still remains the most popular sport watched on TV, local sport Kabaddi is fast gaining share. Cricket still continues to dominate the sports genre with 69% viewership followed by Kabbadi with 15%, wrestling & Soccer with 5% each and other at 6%.
Kabbadi, the sport which has very recently gaining popularity is growing rapidly at 83% of viewership.
World Television Premieres:
The channels across the country has shown interest in movie acquisition and desi viewers have always been a movie buffs. Movies are one major source of entertainment and relaxation and therefore channels have never disappointed its viewers. The world television premiere of Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Prem RatanDhan Payo stands tall garnering 7.82 and 7.66 TVR respectively since 2015. Last year’s blockbuster Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and Golmaal Again have attracted 7.10 and 4.88 TVR respectively.
Supply of Electricity and Weather conditions:
Uninterrupted power supply and the weather conditions are also observed to have influenced the TV viewership in the country. The 11% improvement of electricity supply in Bengal has increased TV viewership by 58%. A drop in primetime viewership is noticed with rise of temperature.viewers have opted out TV during summers, this might be due to vacation, holidays or fluctuating power supply.
Festivals and Public holidays:
Taking a dive into the viewership during festival and public holidays, South viewers have been active during Dussera and Diwali with 16% rise in viewership while HSM has stayed almost unchanged with just 1% rise in viewership. Kerala &TN markets are seen leading the country’s total viewership during Diwali with a rise of 32% and 30% respectively.
Both, the HSM and the South markets have increased equally by 19% each on independence day and on Gandhi Jayanthi HSM viewership increases by 15% and South by 12%.
Migration:
The report shows that the migrants are attracted towards content in their mother tongue, than the regional content. Taking Bhojpuri language into consideration, we see that 59 % of Bhojpuri content is consumed in the home state and around 41% of Bhojpuri content is consumed from other states where the natives are migrants. However, Gujarat, D&N, D&D contributes 6.5%, Delhi makes 4.9% of its viewership and 4.1% of the total viewership from other states comes from Assam,NE and Sikkim.
Kannada being the mother tongue of its natives, 74% of the Kannada content is viewed in Bangalore and Tamil happens to be the second most viewed content in Bangalore with 16% followed by Telugu content with 7% and Hindi content with 3% of total TV viewership in Bangalore.
Literacy
The literacy rate of the state plays a vital role in TV viewing. Literacy and viewership is being directly proportional to each other.The all India average is set at approx 3.45 hours of TV viewing per day. Kerala which has the country’s highest literacy rate is seen somewhere above the country’s average TV viewing as well. States of AP / Telangana leads the TV viewership followed by Karnataka and TN / Pondicherry. States like Bihar/Jharkhand, Rajasthan, UP/Uttarkhand that have the least literacy rate have also taken a back seat in TV viewing.
Role of women
Breaking the stereotype, that women are the regular viewers of daily soaps, the report reveals that women have significantly contributed to news genre viewership. With rise in women empowerment and women making imprints in almost all the fields, women have been interested to update themselves with the current affairs. During the week when the country witnessed a major economical change, with demonetisation phase, the news genre viewership has gone up from 65% by 56%. News genre viewership have grown by 52% among men and 62% among women. Rashtra Ke Naam Sandhesh on 31st dec has garnered 3.5X increase in viewership among men and 3.6X viewership among women.
Local habits:
The local habits of the natives is also made an impact on the news viewership.It is observed that AP and TN viewers are active in the morning time whereas the HSM consumes Hindi, English and regional news in the evening primetime.
Out of the total English news genre viewership 23% is consumed in the morning, 40% in the primetime and 37% in the rest of the time. The HSM records 43% of Hindi news consumption in the primetime, 28% in the morning and 29% in the remaining time of the day.
On the contrary, the south viewers prefer watching news in the morning, unlike the HSM viewers AP / Telangana’s regional news genre viewership is 44% in the morning, 28% in the primetime and others time, each.
The TN/Pondicherry market is also seen attracted towards regional news in the morning with 39% of viewership and 31% and 30% in during other time and primetime respectively.
The detailed report by FICCI Frames 2018 has given a very valuable information on changing patterns of the TV viewership.
