BENGALURU: As the progress in the Sushant Singh Rajput case seemingly tapered off, the news genre lost some of its sheen in terms of weekly impressions in Week 37 of 2020 (Saturday 12 Sep 2020 to Friday 18 Sep 2020, week or period under review). Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for top five Hindi, English, Assamese, Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu channels reveals that the top news channels lost viewership in Week 37 of 2020 as compared to the previous week (Week 36 of 2020). At the same time, overall television viewership in Week 37 of 2020 at 16.6 billion weekly impressions was just a fraction higher than the 16.5 billion weekly impressions in Week 36. BARC data for the top 10 Hindi GEC channels, top four Assamese channels and top five Bangla, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu channels for the week under review shows that viewership of most of these genre/sub-genres in respective platforms and markets increased to contribute to the small increase in overall viewership. The top five channels of English entertainment channels, infotainment, lifestyle, English & Hindi movies, music, sports and top four youth channels also saw viewership in terms of weekly impressions grow.
Top 10 Channels on All Platforms, Pay Platform and Free Platform Across Genres
BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels on all platforms across genres saw the combined weekly impressions in Week 37 of 2020 increase as compared to the previous week. Nine of the channels in the All Platforms channels list were the same with a slight shuffling of ranks as in the previous week. One Telugu channel from the Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zeel) stable exited the list in week 37 of 2020 to be replaced by its sister channel and Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV at rank 10. There were eight Hindi GECs and one channel each from the Tamil and the Telugu genres in the list. There were three channels from Star India, two channels from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zeel and one channel each from Enterr10 Television, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18 in BARC’s Weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres in Week 37 of 2020.
BARC’s Weekly list of top 10 pay channels across genres was dominated by two south Indian language channels – three from the Tamil genre, two channels from the Telugu genres and one from the Bangla genre along with four Hindi GECs. There were four channels from Star India, three channels from Zeel, one channel each from SPN, Sun Tv Network and Viacom18. One channel exited the list in Week 37 of 2020 – the Viacom18 associated ETV Telugu which was replaced by Star India’s flagship Banga GEC Star Jalsha at rank 10.
All the 10 channels in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 free channels in Week 37 of 2020 were the same as in the previous in the same rank order. Six of the channels were Hindi GECs’ while four were Hindi Movies channels. There were three channels from Zeel, two channels from Viacom18, and one channel each from B4U Network, Enterr10 Television, Goldmine Telefilms, Star India and SPN.
Please refer to the table below:
