MUMBAI: The viewership pattern of news channels across genre has improved marginally during the tenth week of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) as compared to the previous week. The Hindi category news channels grew by around 15 per cent, whereas English advanced by 18 per cent.
All thanks to the novel coronavirus, the viewership this week (7-13 March) grew as the audience was glued to the news TV screens to get the timely update of the virus and the rising infected cases in India.
News channels, in week nine (29 February to 6 March), couldn’t maintain the shine from week eight when the virus had entered India earlier this month and the rising cases have made people consume more news as it is the only authentic source of information.
TV Today Network’s Aaj Tak (Hindi) and India Today (English) news channels have grown by over 24 per cent in terms of viewership in the current week as compared to the last.
In the straight tenth week, Aaj Tak has ranked at the first position in the top five Hindi news channels list with 1,53,379 weekly impressions in week ten as compared to 1,23,507 impressions in week nine. While maintaining its third position in the top five English news channels list, India Today has recorded 362 weekly impressions this week versus 291 in the earlier.
Regaining its second spot in terms of viewership, Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ Hindi news channel Zee News grew marginally by around 14 per cent to 1,14,390 weekly impressions in week ten as against 1,00,538 weekly impressions in week nine of BARC.
Network18’s Hindi news channel News18 India has improved its performance in terms of viewership and rank. The channel that jumped one position up to the third spot, grew by around 13 per cent to 1,12,125 weekly impressions this week as compared to 99,504 impressions in week nine.
Similarly, falling two positions down at fourth rank, India TV failed to maintain its shine but has marginally grown by over 6 per cent, in terms of viewership, to 1,09,363 impressions as compared to 1,02,710 weekly impressions in the previous week.
Being at the last position since the last three weeks of BARC, Republic Media Network’s Hindi News channel Republic Bharat has grown by over 14 per cent to 97,200 weekly impressions in the current week as against 85,184 impressions in the earlier week.
In the English category, the undefeated Republic TV has still maintained its number one position in the list of top five channels. The channel gained over 17 per cent to 692 impressions in week ten as compared to 589 impressions in week nine of BARC. Similarly, remaining firm at its second position Times News Network’s English news channel Times Now grew by over 20 per cent, in terms of viewership, to 501 impressions in the current week versus 416 impressions in the previous week.
The government-owned English news channel DD India and Network18’s English news channels CNN-News18 have retained their previous week’s fourth and fifth positions, respectively. The former marginally grew by around 12 per cent to 248 weekly impressions, whereas the latter advanced by over 13 per cent to 232 weekly impressions in the current week of BARC.
With the rising coronavirus cases and the situation being grimmer, the viewership pattern of news channels is likely to increase. The major growth in terms of viewership is expected to come from business news channels amid the stock market crash in the ongoing week due to the virus scare.
