Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India on Thursday released its weekly viewership data basis a revised Universe Estimate (UE). With the new UE, Week 8 (last week of February has seen a significant increase of 18% in total TV viewership in the country and total TV impressions have grown to 26.7 billion impressions in week 8 from 22.7 billion in week 7, BARC says in a release.
As per the report, in Hindi general entertainment channels (GEC), Star Plus (71,20,76,000 impressions), Colors (64,05,25,000 impressions) and Rishtey (53,75,07,000 impressions) are the top three channels, while in Hindi movies, Sony's two channels Sony Max (43,45,71,000 impressions)and Sony Wah (41,46,50,000 impressions) were the top two followed by Zee Cinema (36,41,94,000 impressions).
Another interesting aspect of the findings from BARC is the dominance of regional channels, in terms of number of impressions. For example, in Tamil language Sun TV is the top viewed channel with 101,03,96,000 impressions, which is way ahead of any other channel, including Hindi general entertainment or any news channels.
In Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak (12,69,40,000 impressions), India TV (10,14,39,000 impressions) and ABP News (9,35,17,000 impressions) were the top three channels.
In English business news, CNBC TV18 was the topper at 5,30,000 impressions leaving ET Now and NDTV Profit and NDTV Prime a distance second and third at an impressions of 2,55,000 and 73,000, respectively. In Hindi business channel, CNBC Awaaz was the topper followed by Zee Business.
However, in English news channel Times Now has maintained its lead with 7,98,000 impressions followed by India Today TV at 4,98,000 and CNN News18 at 4,04,000 impressions. (See tables at the bottom of the article for more details)
According to BARC, the UE is based on the results of Broadcast India (BI) Survey - the largest ever research study undertaken to ascertain TV universe and television viewing habits in India. With this, BARC India has updated and aligned its TV Universe in line with ground level changes in demographics, TV ownership and connection type, language preference, and changes in new consumer classification system (NCCS) profiles.
Fieldwork for the Broadcast India Survey was carried out over November 2015 to February 2016, and covered 3,00,000 homes across 590 districts comprising of about 4,300 towns and villages. All towns over one lakh population were covered, while towns below one lakh were selected by a probability proportional to size (PPS) method, BARC says.
“BI 2016 is one of the biggest surveys done in the country so far. The TV universe in India is ever growing and changing and so is the profile and choice of a TV viewer. The last survey done was in 2013 and the last Census was in 2011. The consumer and viewer landscape is changing rapidly - with electrification, prosperity, changing modes of signal and digitisation. We wanted to reflect this change in viewership numbers and hence conducted our own Establishment Survey. This will help our subscribers and the eco system align their strategies for better targeting. The new reality is TV viewership is rapidly growing and how,” said Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India.
The study also highlights the fact that TV households (HHs) have grown faster in NCCS B and C, thus increasing the share of the middle class. While NCCS A has dropped from 22% to 21%, NCCS B and C have gone up from 24% to 27% and 31% to 32%, respectively. NCCS D/E on the other hand has de-grown from 23% to 20%.
“These trends are in line with fragmentation of family sizes (leading to lower average family sizes) and rising economic growth and rising prosperity. It also shows that India has more nuclear families without elders than ever before, and it is also the dominant family group among TV owning homes. While composition of joint families in the universe has come down from 26% to 22%, nuclear families with elders have grown from 53% to 58%,” BARC says.
Some key changes have been seen in the BI study like electrification, migration, digitisation, rise in smaller and nuclear family culture, increase in middle class, inclusion of rural markets and single TV households, which has an impact on TV viewership behaviour.
BI-2016, the report based on the survey, contains not just an updated count and composition of TV homes across urban and rural India, but also offers data and insights that would be of immense value to marketers and advertisers. It contains granular data and information on media consumption habits of Indians, as well as select durable ownership and packaged goods purchase profiles. It is an updated database of Indian consumer behaviour.
According to BARC, during the eight week, every genre has seen a significant growth in viewership, owing to the new UE.
Here are the Highlights of Week 8 Data:
