BENGALURU: Indian television viewership seems to be declining after the lofty peaks of the early COVID2019 (COVID-19) Lockdown as India enters Unlock 1.0, when compared to Week 4 of 2020. The drop in television consumption continued in Week 21 of 2020 (Saturday, 23 May 2020 to Friday, 29 May 2020, week or period under review) with viewership declining to 16.3 billion impressions during the week under review. However, overall television consumption in terms of impressions was still 12.4 percent more in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to Week 4 of 2020 which had garnered 14.5 billion impressions.

Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) and Nielsen have set the average viewership data between Weeks 2 and 4 of 2020 as the yardstick to measure television consumption trends during COVID-19 weeks. While the lockdown in India commenced on 25 March 2020, which was midweek of Week 12 of 2020, BARC-Nielsen COVID-19 reports are available for weeks between Weeks 11 and 20 of 2020 at the time of writing of this paper. The author has considered Week 4 of 2020 as the reference week here.

As is obvious from the chart below, viewership has been dropping over the past few weeks.

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres declined by 2.2 percent in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the ten channels in the list were the same as in the previous week with some changes in the rankings.

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres comprised of four Hindi GECs’, three Hindi Movies channels and one channel each from the Kids, Tamil and Telugu genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were three channels from Star India, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN)and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from, Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network, Viacom18.  While Dangal is available on both the pay TV and FTA platforms, Zeel’s acquired Hindi GEC Big Magic is FTA. The other eight channels were Pay TV. It must be noted that Dangaland Sony SAB had higher impressions in Week 21 of 2020 than in week 20, despite the lower combined ratings of the Top 10 channels in the list.
Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres declined 3.8 percent in Week 21 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the channels in the list in the week under review were the same as in Week 20 of 2020 with some changes in the ranks.

There were three channels each from the Hindi GECs’ and Hindi Movies genre, two Telugu channels and one channel each from the Kids and Tamil genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 19 of 2020.  There were three channels from Star India, two channels each from SPN, the Sun Tv Network and Viacom18 one channel from Zeel in the list.
Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels on Across Genres

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres shows that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels in Week 21 of 2020 were1.7 percent lower than in Week 20. All the channels in the list in Week 21 were the same as in week 20 with some shuffling in the ranks.

There were three channels each from the Bhojpuri,  Hindi GEC and Hindi Movies genres, and there was one Youth channel in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for Week 21 of 2020, There were four channels from Zeel, three channels from Enterr 10 Television, two channels from B4U Network and one channel from the pubcaster network Doordarshan or DD during the period under review.

Please refer to the chart below: