The BARC data for television news channels released on March 17 after a long, inexplicable shutdown. In Week 10, TV9 Bharatvarsh claimed a 16.8 % market share.
“TV9 Network which runs five other language channels — Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali – retained its rank as the country’s biggest television news network. The Network notched up a massive 292 million AMA (average minute audience),” the statement from the company read.
The statement further read, “TV9 Bharatvarsh’s coverage of landmark news events — such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Covid pandemic and the Uttar Pradesh election to name just three — marked by our editorial prowess, newsroom innovation, impeccable packaging and unrivalled ground reportage, saw the channel rise sharply up the rating ladder. This rise has been consistent over the last two years.”
Celebrating the success of TV9 Bharatvarsh and TV9 News Network, Barun Das, CEO, said that the BARC ratings only revealed what some people wanted to hide. “We always knew that we were destined to be the leader. I am happy that the ratings released today have offered empirical evidence of our leadership. I am amused that the only business strategy the legacy channels had to stop the rise of TV9 Bharatvarsh was to stop the ratings themselves. And glad that the interest and the verdict of the viewers have finally prevailed.”
Echoing Barun’s sentiment, BV Rao, Group Editor, said: “It is clear today that you cannot stop a leader by stopping BARC ratings.”
Expressing deep satisfaction over the leadership status, Hemant Sharma, News Director, TV9 Bharatvrash said, “This is the victory of solid credible journalism. This is the victory of conviction in the newsroom capability.”
Sant Prasad Rai, Managing Editor and the architect of the content innovations at TV9 Bharatvarsh, said, “We owe a sense of gratitude to our viewers. We believe the viewer deserves the best. We don’t want to ever compromise on our commitment and responsibility to the viewer. We have established our editorial leadership in every genre in the news space.”
Talking about the network leadership status, Barun said, “It gives us immense pleasure to consistently remain the largest news network of the largest democracy of the world. When success is attained by design, it can be replicated. Our all-round supremacy at the Network level proves that.”
