BENGALURU: Broadcast Audience Research Council of India had taken a breather in publishing data on its website between weeks 5 and 13 of 2019, ostentatiously to give the viewership post the new tariff regime time to settle down to some sort of stability. In the meantime, ARG Outlier Media launched its second news channel after the chart topper English news channel Republic TV. ARG Outlier Media’s new channel was a Hindi news channel – Republic Bharat.
Republic TV had stormed into the Indian English news genre to take numero uno slot in the very first week of its data being considered by BARC, and of course there was a huge storm created later by its older peer English news channels when they exited from BARC for one week. But, then, that is another story. Republic Bharat has quietly entered BARC’s list of top 5 Hindi news channels in both the urban (HSM -U) and rural (HSM-R) Hindi speaking markets – individually in each of the markets and hence in the combined urban and rural markets HSM (U+R).
In BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi news channels in HSM (U+R) for week 13 of 2019 (Saturday, 23 March 2019 to Friday, 29 March 2019, week under review), Aaj Tak retained its pole position with 168.968 million weekly impressions in HSM (U+R): NCCS All : 15+ Individuals. India TV was second with 141.885 million weekly impressions, followed by Republic Bharat at third place with 131.570 million weekly impressions. At fourth rank was ABP News with 117.753 million weekly impressions closely followed by Zee News at fifth place with 117.011 million weekly impressions.
In HSM-R: NCCS All : 15+ Individuals, Aaj Tak led the list of top 5 Hindi news channels with 82.703 million weekly impressions followed by Republic Bharat at second place with 59.979 million weekly impressions in week 13 of 2019. At third rank in the HSM - R list was India TV with 59.269 million weekly impressions followed by ABP News with 56.242 million weekly impressions at fourth place. At fifth place was Zee News with 49.970 million weekly impressions.
In week 13 of 2019, HSM-U: NCCS All : 15+ Individuals was also led by Aaj Tak with 86.265 million weekly impressions followed by India TV with 82.615 million weekly impressions. At third rank was Republic Bharat with 71.590 million weekly impressions followed by News18 India with 67.509 million weekly impressions at fourth rank. To complete the quintet in week 13 of 2019 not far behind was Zee News with 67.041 million weekly impressions.
