NEW DELHI: As India enters in unlock 2.0, news channels look at the brighter side, both in the terms of viewership and advertisements, reveals the tenth edition of BARC+Nielsen weekly report on media consumption habits in the covid period. 

News viewership in the first half of 2020 stands 3 per cent above that in the first half of 2019, taking 12 per cent of the overall media consumption pie, operating at 43 per cent higher viewership than the previous year. Primetime viewership is even higher at 48 per cent more. Business news viewership in the first half of 2020 is 44 per cent higher than the previous year, reveals the data. 

For the covid period, news consumption has started stabilising at 11 per cent of the overall TV viewership in week 26’20 (starting 27 June). 

The viewing impressions for Hindi News are also operating at a much higher level compared to pre-covid period (11 Jan - 31 Jan), at 71 per cent more. The number is 45 per cent more for English news, 19 per cent more for Hindi Regional News, and 13 per cent more for English Business News. 

The viewing impressions for Southern India are even higher across genre, especially news, with Tamil News channels recording 177 per cent higher viewing impressions than pre-covid period, Malayalam channels at 96 per cent higher, Kannada channels at 93 per cent higher, and Telugu channels at 40 per cent higher. 

Ad volumes are also increasing on news genre, clocking 39 million in June 2020, higher than 35 million during the same period last year. However, the overall ad volumes in the first half of 2020 (225 million) are lower than that in the same period the previous year (259 million). Albeit, for some of the languages, the numbers are higher than that of the previous year.