BENGALURU: Southern languages channels shared equal space in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across genres list with Hindi GECs in week 50 of 2019 (Saturday, 7 December 2019 to Friday, 13 December 2019, week or period under review). In the meantime, TV viewership dropped to 13.8 billion weekly impressions in week 50 of 2019 from 14.2 billion in the previous week. 

Overall TV and OTT weekly viewership according to BARC data declined 2.8 percent to 14 billion weekly impressions during the period under review from 14.4 billion impressions reported in week 49 of 2019. The Top 10 Pay Channels Across genres incurred a higher loss than the Top 10 Free to Air (FTA) Channels Across Genres did in week 50 of 2019 as compared to week 49, as their respective chartswhich follow in this paper will demonstrate.

Please refer to the chart for TV and OTT viewership for week 49 and 50 of 2019: 

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

There were five channels each from Hindi GEC and three South Indian languages in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across genre for week 50 of 2019 as mentioned above. There were two channels each from the Tamil and Telugu genres and one channel from the Kannada genre in the top 10 across genres on all platforms weekly list for week 50 of 2019.

There were three channels from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel), two channels each from Star India and Network18/Viacom18 and one channel each from Enterr 10 Television, Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and the Sun Tv Network in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across genre for week 50 of 2019.

Nine of the channels in the across genres on all platforms list in week 50 of 2019 were same as in the previous week with some shuffling of ranks. Star India’s Tamil GEC Star Vijay exited the list in week 50, while the Network18 associated Telugu GEC ETV Telegu reentered the weekly list. One channel, the most watched one – Dangal TV was free to air (FTA), while the other nine were on the pay TV platform.

The Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres recorded weekly impressions of 6.655 billion in week 50 of 2019, 3.4 percent lower than the 6.887 million weekly impressions in week 49.

Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay TV channels Across Genres

It was the three South Indian languages channels that dominated BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 50 of 2019 in terms of viewership. There were five channels – two each from the Tamil and the Telugu and one from Kannada genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres during the period under review. Besides the five South Indian channels, there were four Hindi GEC’s in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 50 of 2019. The combined weekly impressions of the five South Indian channels was 3.099 billion weekly impressions, 9.7 percent more than the 2.826 billion weekly impressions of the Hindi GECs’ in week 50 of 2019. In week 49 of 2019 (previous week), there were six South Indian languages channels and four Hindi GECs’ in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres.  

Further, as has been the case over the past few weeks, the most watched pay channels were not Hindi GEC – they were Tamil and Telugu GECs’ at ranks one and two respectively in the list. 

Nine of the channels in the weekly pay TV across genres list in week 50 0f 2019 were same as in the previous week with a slight shuffling of ranks. SPN’s flagship Hindi GEC Sony Entertainment Television or SET reentered the list on the exit of Star India’s Tamil GEC Star Vijay. There were three channels fromZeel, two channels each from Network18/Viacom18, SPN and Star India and one channel from Sun Tv Network in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 50 of 2019.

As mentioned above, the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres lost viewership in week 50 of 2019 as compared to week 49. The combined viewership of the Top 10 channels in week 50 of 2019 was 5.925 billion weekly impressions, 4.1 percent lower than the 6.178 billion weekly impressions in week 49.

Please refer to the chart below

Top 10 Free channels Across Genres

Nine channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free to Air Channels Across Genres in week 50 of 2019 were the same as in the previous week with slight changes in the ranks. SkyStar’s Hindi Movies channel ABZY Movies exited the list in week 50 of 2019 to be replaced by Doordarshan’s sports channel DD Sports, now that the one day series between India and West Indies is being played. 

There were three channels each from Enterr 10 Television, the B4U Network and Zeel and one channel from Doordarshan in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for week 50 of 2019. There were three channels from the Hindi Movies genre, two movies each from the Bhojpuri and the Hindi GEC genres, and there was one channel each from the Marathi, Music and Sports genres in week 50 of 2019 in the free channels across genres weekly list.

The combined viewership of the Top 10 Free Channels Across genres in week 50 of 2019 dropped 1.7 percent to 2.348 billion weekly impressions as compared to 2.388 billion weekly impressions in the previous week.

Please refer to the chart below: