BENGALURU: In a week that saw news channels grab eyeballs with their coverage and debates and discussions post the Indo-China Gawlan Valley skirmish, the Sun Tv Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV regained its numero uno position in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres. BARC weekly data for Week 24 of 2020 (Saturday, 13 June 2020 to Friday, 19 June 2020, week or period under review)In calendar year 2020, Sun TV had last headed BARC’s Weekly lists of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 2 of 2020.
Week 24 of 2020 saw TV consumption increase by about 1.2 percent week-on-week to 16.5 billion weekly impressions from 16.3 billion weekly impressions in Week 23.The increase in television consumption in Week 24 of 2020 was 13.8 percent higher than the consumption of 14.5 billion weekly impressions in Week 4, which has been considered as the base Pre-COVID2019 week here. Though a lot of the increased viewership was garnered by news channels in Week 24 of 2020, Hindi GECs also saw viewership grow.
Ratings agencies BARC and Nielsen have set the average viewership data between Weeks 2 and 4 of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during COVID-19 weeks. While the lockdown in India commenced on 25 March 2020, which was midweek of Week 12 of 2020, BARC-Nielsen Covid2019 reports are available for weeks between Weeks 11 and 18 of 2020 at the time of writing of this paper. As mentioned above, the author has considered Week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here. Please refer to the figure below for TV viewership trends over the past few weeks.
The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Free channels Across Genres increased 19.6 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week, while at the same time, the combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres was almost flat (increased by 0.5 percent). Combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay channels declined 2.5 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week.
The week under review also saw Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav climb to second place in BARC’s Weekly lists of Top 10 channels on All Platforms and find a place in all the three BARC across genres lists. Dangal slipped a couple of ranks to third place in BARC’s across genres on all platforms list, but continued to head BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres.
Please refer to the chart below:
While the Top 10 Hindi GECs in the HSM (U+R) market saw consumption spike 6.9 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to Week 23, the Top 5 Hindi movie channels saw consumption dip 2.6 percent in terms of weekly impressions. The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Hindi GEC in HSM (U+R) on All Platforms increased 6.9 percent and those of the Free Platform increased 27.3 percent in Week 24 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Hindi GECs’ on the Pay Platform declined 3.5 percent during the same period. Growth was driven by the HSM (R) which saw the combined weekly impressions increase 12.4 percent as compared to flat growth in the combined weekly impressions in HSM (U).
