MUMBAI: Prime minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation regarding the first extension of the lockdown on 14 April garnered four billion viewing minutes, as per latest data released by BARC-Nielsen. 

This address garnered the highest viewership among his four addresses to the nation regarding COVID-19.  In his recent address, PM Modi announced that the nation-wide lockdown will be extended till 3 May.

The lockdown extension speech received 3937.3 million viewing minutes while the earlier one on 3 April got 1024.5 million viewing minutes. The PM’s first lockdown announcement on 24 March got 3862.9 million viewing minutes, the second-highest among the four.

The latest 25-minute address of the prime minister was shown on at least 199 channels with over 200 million people watching it. The recent address was the most important one compared to the three previous addresses, as PM Modi was about to speak on the future of lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

PM Modi’s first address (Janta Curfew) on 19 March had garnered over 1.2 billion viewing minutes. In his second address, he announced the 21-day lockdown, which helped gain over 3.8 billion viewing minutes. The third address was only able to achieve 1 billion viewing minutes, during which he urged citizens to light a lamp and candles to stand together in India's fight against the pandemic.