MUMBAI: With the number of debates and shows increasing the coverage of ‘Intolerance’, news channels are putting every effort to grab a piece of pie in terms of duration and viewership.
S-Group, an analytical arm of TAM Media Research analysed the news coverage of ‘‘Intolerance’’ by media channels. ‘Intolerance’ received highest coverage and viewership in week 45 on the English News genre with 18% coverage and 24 per cent viewership.
It received the second highest coverage and viewership in the Hindi news Genre with 13% Coverage and 12 per cent viewership. The Other top stories were on the Bihar Assembly elections and underworld don Chhota Rajan’s arrest.
In terms of duration, English news channels like News X, Times Now, and India Today gave
relatively greater focus to coverage of ‘Intolerance’ News, whereas ABP News, IBN 7, Zee News and India TV were the Hindi News channels who gave more focus to the issue.
In terms of viewership Times Now and Aaj Tak led the two genres.Amongthe English news channels, Times now got 63 percent of viewership followed by India Today with 19 per cent. Whereas in the case of
Hindi news channels like Aaj Tak got 24 per cent of the viewership and ABP followed with 20 per cent.
Many celebrities have spoken on ‘Intolerance’ and the debate shows focused on few of them like Shahrukh Khan and Anupam Kher.
But in the terms of duration and viewership, Anupam Kher received maximum focus in the discussions with 20 per cent share on duration basis, while Shahrukh Khan led with 20 per cent in viewership on English News channels.
On Hindi news channels, Anupam Kher led both in duration as well as in viewership with 14 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.
(Hindi News: TG - CS 15+, Market - HSM; English News: TG - CS 25+ Male AB, Market - All India 1Mn+)
The report was sampled by approximately 19 per cent audiences across all markets in India by TAM. Karnataka including Bangalore contributed 36% to the Viewership of Report on ‘Intolerance’ in the English News genre, especially as the murdered writer Kalburgi belonged to Karnataka.
Rajat Sharma from NDTV and Arnab Goswami from Times Now had the highest viewership with 10 per cent and 41 per cent on Hindi and English News genres respectively.
The issue of ‘Intolerance’ continues to intensify as people like Minister VK Singh and the Dalai Lama have spoken on it. As to ‘Intolerance’ being of national interest, its stories are engaging people; grabbing more attention as many artists, historians and writer have returned awards given to them by the government.
News channels are focusing on the subject as it receives heavy amount of viewership. With more comments coming in from politicians and public figures, only time will tell how events unfold in News genre in the future.
