BENGALURU: After an expected slump in viewership in the last BARC week of 2019 – week 53 (Saturday 28 December 2019 to Friday, 3 January 2020), the combined viewership of top 5 English News channels increased 9.2 percent to 1.835 million weekly impressions in week 1 of 2020 (Wy01 of 2020) from 1.681 million. Viewership was also boosted by the happenings at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5 and their subsequent fall out.
There was a small change in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list of top 5 English News channels in week 1 of 2019 (Saturday, 4 January 2020 to Friday 10 January 2020) – pubcaster network Doordarshan’sEnglish News channels DD India exited the list to be replaced by the Pronnoy and Radhika Roy led NDTV 24x7 which re-entered BARC’s weekly list after a short hiatus of two weeks. Earlier NDTV 24x7 had re-entered BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English News channels in week 51 of 2019 for the first time since BARC Recommenced publication of viewership data in the public domain in week 13 of 2019. BARC had stopped publication of weekly data in the public domain between weeks 6 and 12 of 2019 to enable stabilisation of viewership after the implementation of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) New Tariff Order.
Please refer to the figure below:
As has become the norm, the top 2 channels in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English News channels in week 1 of 2020 were same – the Arnab Goswami led Republic TV and his previous employer – Times Now. India Today Television moved up a place to rank 3 in week 1 of 2020 from rank 4 in week 53 of 2019. CNN News India also moved up a place to rank 4 during the week under consideration from rank 5 in the previous week. As mentioned above, NDTV 24x7 re-entered the list at rank five.
Please refer to the figure below:
Republic TV saw its ratings climb 8.1 percent to 0.615 million impressions in week 1 of 2020 from 0.569 million in the previous week. Times Now saw its viewership climb 14 percent in week 1 0f 2020 to 0.481 million weekly impressions from 0.422 million weekly impressions in week 53 of 2019. The India Today group’s India Today Television saw ratings jump 27.7 percent in week 1 of 2020 to 0.327 million weekly impressions from 0.256 million.
CNN News18 saw viewership climb 26.6 percent to 0.224 million weekly impressions from 0.177 million weekly impressions. NDTV 24x7 entered the list with 0.188 million weekly impressions in week 1 of 2020.
Please refer to the figure below
