BENGALURU: This is election season, more precisely national election season in the largest democracy in the world – India has the largest adult franchise base among democracies in the world. And yet, news ratings, which are event driven, haven’t yet really perked if one were to go by Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data over the past few weeks. There have been no major upsets in ranks of BARC’s weekly lists of top 5 news channels in Hindi and English in week 18 of 2019 – except for the small almost predictable blip in the English news genre. We’d mentioned in the previous week that there is a dingdong contest for the first rank in English news between pubcaster DD India and the Arnab Goswami-led private news channel Republic TV. The pendulum has swung in favour of DD India in week 18 of 2019 (Saturday, 27 April 2019 to Friday, 3 May 2019, week under review).
Let’s see how Hindi news channels fared in week 18 of 2019
There were absolutely no upsets in ranks in the combined urban (U) and rural (R) Hindi speaking market -HSM (U+R) or Individual HSM (U) and HSM (R). Aaj Tak led rankings in all the three BARC weekly lists.
In BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi news channels in HSM (U+R) Aaj Tak was ranked first in week 18 of 2019 with 146.057 million weekly impressions as compared to 156.680 million weekly impressions in the previous week. India TV was ranked second in week 18 of 2019 with 113.144 million weekly impressions as compared to 115.770 million weekly impressions in week 17. At third rank was Republic Bharat with 109.891 million weekly impressions as compared to 113.702 million weekly impressions in the previous week. At fourth rank was News18 India with 107.052 million weekly impressions as compared to 109.282 million weekly impressions in week 17. At fifth rank was APB News with 98.960 million weekly impressions as compared to 100.753 million weekly impressions in week 17.
In BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi news channels in HSM (R) also, Aaj Tak was ranked first in week 18 of 2019 with 66.229 million weekly impressions as compared to 70,475 million weekly impressions in week 17. At second rank was Republic Bharat with 51.492 million weekly impressions as compared to 54.386 million weekly impressions in the previous week. At third rank was APB News with 45.176 million weekly impressions as compared to 47.418 million weekly impressions in week 17. India TV was ranked fourth in week 18 of 2019 with 42.715 million weekly impressions as compared to 46.296 million weekly impressions in week 17. At fifth rank was News18 India with 41.087 million weekly impressions as compared to 41.693 million weekly impressions in week 17
In BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi news channels in HSM (U) Aaj Tak was ranked first in week 18 of 2019 with 79.828 million weekly impressions as compared to 86.206 million weekly impressions in the previous week. India TV was ranked second in week 18 of 2019 with 70.429 million weekly impressions as compared to 69.473 million weekly impressions in week 17. At third rank was News18 India with 65.965 million weekly impressions as compared to 67.589 million weekly impressions in week 17. At fourth rank was Republic Bharat with 58.399 million weekly impressions as compared to 59.316 million weekly impressions in the previous week. At fifth rank was Zee News with 57.076 million weekly impressions as compared to 58.033 million weekly impressions in week 17.
English news
DD India was ranked first in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English news channels in week 18 of 2019 with 0.655 million weekly impressions as compared to second rank and 0.511 million weekly impressions in week 17. Republic TV was ranked second with 0.596 million weekly impressions as compared first rank and to 0.574 million weekly impressions in week 17. At third rank was Times Now with 0.443 million weekly impressions as compared to second rank and 00.428 million weekly impressions in week 17. At fourth rank was India Today Television with 0.283 million weekly impressions as compared to 0.299 million weekly impressions. Completing the quintet in week 18 of 2019 was CNN News18 with 0.281 million weekly impressions as compared to second rank and 0.289 million weekly impressions in week 17.
