BENGALURU: The combined weekly ratings of the top 5 English news channels declined 4.45 per cent according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for week 31 of 2019 (Saturday, 27 July 2019 to Friday, 2 August 2019, week or period under review) as compared to the previous week. The combined viewership of the top 5 English news channels in week 31 of 2019 was 1.811 million weekly impressions as compared to 1.896 million weekly impressions in week 30. This was the second lowest total since BARC recommenced publication of weekly data in the public domain in week 13 of 2019.
As mentioned by us earlier, ratings of English news ratings seem to be on a decline Earlier, in week 29 of 2019, the combined viewership of the top 5 English news channels had achieved a new nadir.Please refer to the figure below:
The channels in BARC’s weekly lists of top 5 English news channels have been the same since week 13 of 2019. However, there has been some shuffling in ranks during the period. Over the past few week, ranks 1, 2 and 3 have stabilised with the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV at rank 1, Times Now at rank 2 and pubcaster Doordarshan India’s English news channel DD India at rank 3. During the past three weeks, rank four has been held by Network18’s CNN News18 and rank 5 by the India Today Group’s India Today Television. Please refer to the two charts below
As mentioned above, ranks one to five seem to have stabilised since the past three weeks, with Republic TV, Times Now, DD India, CNN News18 and India Today Television at ranks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively.
Let us see the ratings of the top 5 channels in week 31 of 2019.
At rank 1, Republic TV saw a small decline in viewership at 0.569 million weekly impressions in week 31 as compared to 0.574 million weekly impressions in the previous week. Times Now saw its ratings bump up to 0.425 million weekly impressions during the week under review as compared to 0.411 million weekly impressions in week 23. Ranked third, DD India saw a big drop in ratings to 0.337 million weekly impressions in week 31 of 2019 as compared to 0.400 million weekly impressions in week 30. CNN News18 also saw a substantial drop in viewership to 0.246 million weekly impressions in week 31 of 2019 as compared to 0.283 million weekly impressions in week 30. Completing the quintet at rank five, India Today Television saw its ratings increase slightly to 0.234 million weekly impressions during the period under review as compared to 0.228 million weekly impressions in the previous week.
