NEW DELHI: Covid2019 impacted nearly every genre on television. People were forced to stay indoors and as a result they spent a lot of time watching news, movies, music and shows on TV, resulting in a massive viewership spike.

The movie channels leveraged this period and showcased the best titles from their library to ensure that they are able to attract audiences. A BARC report stated that there was a 14 per cent increase in impressions and 10 per cent spike in daily average reach.  

However, during several webinars, meetings and discussions, industry observers clearly mentioned that the surge in viewership did not translate into advertising.

TAM recently released data that showed ad volumes on movie genre grew by 60 per cent in 2020, compared to ad volumes in 2016. Interestingly, the quarter ended 31 December saw the highest number of hours in ad volumes per day.

If we look closely at the data, we will notice an obvious trend where the average ad volumes per day steeply fell in the initial stages of lockdown, and then started picking up early May-June onwards. The trend was obvious because marketing teams at brands were still unable to gauge the depth of the crisis and not ready to bet money on advertising in that quarter.

Movies have consistently maintained a 20 per cent average in overall television advertising across the years. (since 2016). In 2020, it was at 23 per cent.

The top five sub genres in 2019 were – Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil, and Bengali, while in 2020 the top sub genres were Hindi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Telugu, and Kannada.

Personal care and food & beverages sectors were the leading advertisers on this genre, however, toilet soaps, shampoos and washing powders continued their dominance in terms of ad volumes in this category.

HUL and Reckitt Benckiser India were the leading advertisers, while Dettol Toilet Soaps and Clinic Plus Shampoo were the leading brands in the genre.

The report also highlighted that ad volumes had a split of 51:49 between national and regional. In 2019, this split was at 56:44.  

During the Unlock phase, the movie genre saw nearly 280 hours of average ad volumes per day, which was 93 per cent more than the lockdown period.

Ad volumes were maximum on primetime band and the 20-40 seconder ad format still ruled the segment.