Mumbai: BARC India and Nielsen has explained the impact of COVID -19 on TV and Digital Media behaviour across India with an exclusive report that divulged the outcome of forced confinement which lead to changes in TV consumption behavior.
The COVID-19 disruption period has seen an increase in television viewership resulting in 6% increase in TV Reach and 8% increase in TV viewing minutes /week with the time spent on TV per viewer witnessing a 2% jump.
The need for continuous updates expectedly has led to a huge increase in News consumption on Television with 57% increase in Impressions.
Responding to the growth of News genre on Television, Avinash Kaul, CEO – Television News, Network18 said, “In the wake of a total lockdown that has crippled print media delivery and which is majorly impacting Radio, Outdoor and Cinema industry, data reveals that television has emerged a superstar, especially the news segment that has grown far higher than movies and general entertainment viewing. In the week disrupted by COVID-19, compared to the previous weeks, overall news viewership grew by 57%. Non-Prime Time viewership in morning and afternoon has seen a big upward shift with most people relying on TV news in the absence of the morning newspaper routine as well as NCCS-A has seen a sharp growth of 11%.
I am happy to note that more women are watching television as the increase in their viewing minutes is more than men’s. Data also shows that the Prime Minister’s address on lockdown was the biggest TV event ever – even bigger than IPL finals. This trend keeps news network like ours on top of the game. Last week Network18 channels daily average reach was 10 crores . With a reach of 7 crore people daily average in non-COVID days and 70 crore annually across 15 languages in 26 states and a team of over 1200 reporters who are using state-of-the-art technology amidst lock-down to bring the fastest and most accurate news, we, at Network18, are committed to being the most credible source of information to our viewers.” added Avinash.
The report also revealed that, on digital front News and Gaming showed huge increases. News apps saw 8% more users per week with an increase of 17% in time spent/user/week. This growth was led by non-English News apps (+87%)
