Chennai: Fabricated Media reports without validating the data have questioned the spike of Republic TV’s opening week ratings released by BARC for week 19.
The reports were loosely structured in such a way that the credibility and fidelity of BARC data being projected in bad light. However, careful and detailed evaluation of the facts with BARC data reveals a completely contradicting scenario that conveniently justifies the opening week numbers of new entrant English News Channel Republic TV.
The following reality checks exposes the falsifying statements of Media reports published by certain magazines:
In Chennai – It was claimed that Republic TV’s distribution is in poor shape and average time spent was illogical:
REALITY:
- The average time spent of Republic TV in Chennai is 23 minutes in week-19 whereas the same was falsely represented in Media reports as 49 minutes.
- Republic is available on Major MSO networks of Chennai and Tamil Nadu including the government owned Arasu Cable TV. It is not available on SCV and JAK.
- In-fact the Channel has signed local partnership deal with many operators like VK Digital that owns Polimer TV.
- The viewership in Chennai was garnered largely on the following 3 days of the week driven by following coverage
- Tuesday – 1700 – 2030 – Kapil Mishra and SunandaPushkar
- Thursday – 1730 – 2100– Republic’s expose on Lashkar
- Friday – 1800 – 2030 – National Herald Case & Traitor ZakirNaik
In Kolkata: It was claimed that the average TSV of 52 minutes was quite abruptly high.
REALITY:
- Again the average time spent of Republic TV in Kolkata is 23 minutes and not 52 minutes as claimed in the article. More over, the channel is available in 7 out of 8 major distribution networks in Kolkata.
- The viewership in Kolkata was garnered largely on the 3 following days, driven by the following coverage:
- Sunday – 2100 – 2300 – LaluYadav and Kapil Mishra
- Monday – 1300 – 1400 – Kapil Mishra; 1800 – 1900 – Kapil Mishra; 2100 – 2130 – SunandaPushkar
- Tuesday – 1300 – 1700 – Sunanda Pushkar and Kapil Mishra; 2100 – 2300 – SunandaPushkar
MP/Chhattisgarh: It was claimed that the market was never been a Market for English News Channels.
REALITY:
- The average time spent in MP/Chhattisgarh is 11 minutes
- The higher viewership is seen only on Saturday, which was also the launch day of the channel.
- The ratings peaked in Saturday between 10:00 hrs to 1500 hrs, which was the launch Day and timing, wherein LaluYadav’s 1st tape was exposed at 10:12 AM and tape 2,3 and 4 were launched at 14:30.
Few reports also convincingly questioned the sudden spike in numbers of the channel as if there were no peaking trends in past while it was always quite natural that the audience sampling will be more for any perfect launch associated with 360 degree marketing campaign.
The spike in numbers were clearly due to the extraordinary hype created by innovative launch campaign #ArnabwithYouSoon with “I am coming back” tagline designed by O&M. It was further enhanced by the counter campaign launched by Indian Today pitching Anjana as their answer to Arnab.
The above facts not only exposes the false claims made by certain media reports, but also the orchestrated efforts of vested interest parties who wanted to malign the remarkable and historic achievement of a new entrant in English News Space
