The business of broadcasting is changing, and news broadcasting is no different. It is a combination of television and digital that will matter, says Zakka Jacob, Managing Editor, CNN-News18, in conversation with MediaNews4u.com. Excerpts from a telephonic interaction.
Congratulations on the latest ratings. However, there seems to be a cloud around acceptance of the viewership ratings today. What is your view? Are advertisers buying only on the basis of BARC ratings?
Honestly we don’t think that there is any issue. I think the dispute arises from channels which are not No.1 but claiming for a long time that they are No.1. However, it is clear from the BARC ratings for the past 43 weeks that CNN-News18 is the leader (among English news channels).
As far as advertising on television is concerned, advertisers are still engaging with the BARC data along with a bit of perception. The space is witnessing diversification wherein a lot more advertisers are looking at digital presence. Our aim is to be platform agnostic and our team works towards taking our content to wherever the viewer is and our news is reaching them through television, YouTube, Facebook across all platforms. In addition to television, today, news brand CNN-News18 is the leader in digital viewership as well. We are No. 1 in YouTube and Facebook. Something that makes us really proud.
Can you explain the digital viewership with necessary data?
For us the turning point was August last year when we streamed the US speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan that hit one lakh concurrent views. The next month, in September 2022, the queen (England) passed away and the streaming crossed 100 million views for the first time.
During the last six months CNN-News18 has been No.1 as per Data Beings and Google Analytics. In the month of January 2023, CNN-News18’s YouTube channel witnessed a record 173 million views, while Facebook handle crossed 135 million views. In fact during weeks 6 and 7 our platform has clocked 21 million YouTube views as per Data Beings which is higher than the cumulative numbers of No.2 and No.3 channels.
Our dominance in YouTube and Facebook viewership is a testimony of the fact that we are undisputed leaders across the platforms and justify our leadership in BARC ratings.
News runs through the day. But it is newsroom debates that dominate prime time. The value and integrity of newsroom debates is being debated today. Why is this happening?
If you look at our content piece, not all our prime time shows are debates. Our 8pm show which Anand Narashiman does was consciously moved away from debates. Even in my show we have debates on some days while other days are explainers. A lot of our prime time shows are moving away from debates – that is one of the reasons why viewers are coming to us.
While every other channel is jostling debate-oriented shows, we have moved into an explainer format, a more informative format. And that started working in favour of us on television, YouTube as well as Facebook because that is the kind of content that is in demand. I think slowly a rub-off is also happening from digital platforms to TV.
Even though debates are still the staple of our prime time TV coverage, we are consciously moving and right now the balance is about 40pc non-debate and 60pc debates which earlier used to be 90pc debate content. My hunch is, going forward, this would become in the range of 50:50 between debate and non-debate as a lot more viewers are preferring to watch non-debate content.
Do you mean to say that debate shows are losing their steam?
I don’t think that is the case exactly. Still there are people consuming news debates. However, audience tastes have evolved. There are newer audiences coming in, who want to watch non-debate news content. We need to provide the kind of content that is demanded by a newer audience as the viewership itself is widening. Some kind of rub-off is happening from digital to television that is resulting in explanatory and exploratory formats on TV. I hope this will continue further going forward.
There are news reports that digital news viewership is not growing. What is your experience ?
According to me, digital video viewership is growing phenomenally. As a TV channel we make videos and we put on Facebook, YouTube and on our own digital platforms and in my experience it is growing exceptionally. Even on our CNN-News18 YouTube page, six months ago, we had two million subscribers, the same has grown up to three and a half million subscribers roughly between August last year and January 2023.
When the subscribers are increasing along with video views it is a sign of growth. Moreover, the overall time spent on digital videos has increased significantly. So, I don’t see any sign of stagnation on the digital video side in our case or even with the competition.
But, I don’t know the scenario on the digital publishing side as it doesn’t come under my remit.
Is digital advertising for news keeping pace with the growth in numbers, if the space is indeed growing?
Going forward the selling of ad space will have a combination of television and digital. As the audience is evolving and moving towards newer mediums, the content creators will naturally be migrating along with them. Similarly, the brands that target the viewers would want their brand presence in all those platforms.
Hence, the future of selling FCT (Free Commercial Time) will involve a combination of linear television and digital. No brand would want to restrict itself with a single medium as advertisers would always want maximum reach against the money spent.
So platforms that would be able to sell both linear and digital will have an edge. Such kind of hybrid models will be the future and the ecosystem will immensely gain from such transformation. Our sales teams go to the market selling the combination of digital and TV. CNN-News18’s digital platforms, Facebook and YouTube, have consistently posted year-on-year revenue growth keeping pace with the increase in viewership. In fact we have seen highest ever revenue growth in the current financial year.
How is the profile of a digital news consumer different from that of a television news consumer?
We discovered that digital allows you to share multiple feeds simultaneously. At any point of time CNN-News18’s digital platforms will be running twenty live videos with varied topics. It could be Turkey Earthquake, Ukraine war, SC verdict on Shiv Sena case etc. It is like running 20 different channels all at a time and it is going to 20 different sets of audiences.
Primarily it enables you to broad-base your audience because a lot more people are watching your platform. Secondly it enables the viewers to watch it from anywhere in the world. Whereas in your domestic television a bulk of the audience are still a national audience, therefore their tastes and requirements will be national news.
Since the content on YouTube can be viewed anywhere from the world, the skew is towards international content.
Do you think the ratings war among news channels is taking a toll on the qualitative aspect of news dissemination?
I think there is a misconception that news channels are running high-decibel debates for the sake of eyeballs. Ever since the reintroduction of BARC ratings, the English news genre has grown phenomenally. The genre has garnered 4400 GTVT (gross TV viewership in thousands) during the current ratings week. Before the ratings went off, the same was somewhere around 2000 to 3000 GTVTs only. There is a good 20 to 25 pc increase. The growth can be attributed to the increase in the number of BARC meters.
