Viewers Verdict: What Makes CNN-IBN The Leader?

A close look on the performance of English news channels during past 14 weeks.

Rajat Arora | Delhi | November 8, 2010

The war on TV is intense. All English news channels are fighting hard for their pie. From hardcore news to documentaries and from special features to bollywood news, the English news channels are leaving no stone unturn to grab the leadership position. The fight is strong among the top three English news channels NDTV 24X7, CNN-IBN and Times Now.

And what makes this battle interesting are the names associated with these channels. NDTV with its veterans like Dr Pranoy Roy, Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra has popular programming and channel has various faces to bank upon. CNN-IBN with the passionate Rajdeep Sardesai also has popular faces like Karan Thapar and Sagarika Ghose who ensure the most innovative programming in TV news. Times Now with its own unique style of presenting news has only Arnab Goswami as its popular face.

The TAM analysis

Despite being the oldest one NDTV 24X7 couldn't succeed to get the no 1 position in last 14 weeks in TG CS 15+, CS AB 15+, CS AB 25-54, CS 25+. Though the channel has grabbed the second position in couple of TGs.  CNN-IBN has been really strong in these 14 weeks. The channel has topped the charts in all TGs. Times now has given a close fight to CNN-IBN by being a close second in various TGs.  Headlines today and News X have been at the no 4 and no 5 spot with marginal shares.

Top Shows

In latest week (week 44) NDTV had 41 of its shows in top 100 shows, whereas, CNN-IBN had 39 of its show in top 100. Times now has been the distant three with only 14 shows in top 100. Four CNN-IBN shows made it to the list of top 10 shows.

CNN-IBN led the pack with 42 shows in top 100 in week 43. In that week NDTV was a distant second with only 29 of its shows in top 100 and Times now was no 3 with 19 of its sows in top 100. The surprise element of that week was 6 of the News X shows making it to the list of top 100 shows by surpassing Headlines Today.  In week 43, 9 of the top 10 shows were on CNN-IBN with Karan Thapar's the last Word topping the chart.

Latest week

In the latest week (week 44) also CNN-IBN has continued its dominating trend by being no 1 across in all TGs. NDTV has been the no 2 players in most of the TGs and Times now got the no 2 spot only in two TGs.

With the Obama visit the fight for the eyeballs is stiff among the top three players this week as well. All of them have opened guns with their top faces and popular panelists to get the viewers. The viewership trends of this week would be interesting to see.

Rajat.Arora@BestMediaInfo.com

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