MUMBAI: Leading Hindi news channel India TV is ruling the charts with 87 million viewing minutes in the genre of Hindi news channels in three mega cities of Hindi-speaking markets, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, according to the Prima VU individual level data released for the first time by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) on 23 April.

India TV also tops the chart in the six mega cities put together with 89 million viewing minutes, says the BARC Prima VU report.

Prima VU is an audience measurement system for premium homes accounting for the top three per cent of the socio-economic strata in six mega cities of India. This audience measurement was introduced by BARC in July last year to gauge what news viewers watch in premium homes across the mega cities of India.

In the genre of Hindi news channels, India TV has been topping the charts of Prima VU household data week after week. With a viewership of 514 million viewing minutes during the last 18 weeks, India TV was positioned number one among all the Hindi news channels, according to BARC Prima VU data collated in the 14th week of the present calendar year.

Clearly, the data reveals that India TV is the most preferred choice for news in premium homes spread across mega cities in the Hindi speaking market. It enjoys the loyalty of elite TV audience and continues to influence the influential strata of society.

BARC is the joint media industry body founded by Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI).