Film-based content is favourite among Indian males: BARC Study

The Indian male is glued to film-based content the most followed by serials that gain a lot of viewership from the segment after 7 pm. While film-based content attracts a lot of male viewers from 7 am to 4 pm, the serials take over from there on across weekends and weekdays. The affinity to serials can be attributed to the single TV households of the country, as per the BARC India study.

These were some of the findings of the study, ‘Day In the Life of an Indian Male’, by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India published in its newsletter Think.

Weekday viewership pattern

The second big story that has emerged from this study is about the 5pm to 6pm slot, which can become the second prime time for the 15-40 years target group (TG) since the reach is very high at this time while the Impressions generated are not at par. Calling it as the sweet spot for the broadcasters, the study mentioned, “The reach to Impressions conversion is one of the lowest from 5 pm to 6 pm. This suggests there are enough head counts for TV but they are not converting into Impressions. This could be due to the fact that these time bands either have repeat content or lack contemporary engaging content for the audiences. We can conclude that there is potential for broadcasters, with contemporary or any engaging content based on qualitative findings, to strike at this hour and take away the potential core audience pie.”

The miscellaneous category, which includes teleshopping, reality shows, astrology/ religious shows and agriculture-based shows, get a good traction during weekends.

Impressions to reach ratio

About the time spent by an average viewer, the study establishes that the reach of film-based content is higher while engagement and time spent on serials is higher by an Indian male. The 5-6 pm period could be a potential slot for serials, game/talk/quiz or sports related content to offer fresh and engaging content.

Generally, the male audiences prefer news and business-related shows in the morning hours. This is true across markets -- rural, urban and megacities of India. The reason might be the newspaper reading habits in the morning. Also, for sports, the 4-7 pm slot looks like a strong time band for sports. This can be because a lot of younger audiences would be returning from schools/ colleges and, may be, workplaces.

In the late prime time of 10-11.30 pm, various genres are consumed across all markets. The genres that can be put up include film, serials, sports and lifestyle content. However, lifestyle content is very day agnostic across all the markets. Male audience across rural, urban and megacities consume it is rather similar pattern across all days -- weekends or weekdays. The BARC study mentions, “This similar viewership behaviour of male audiences during late prime time will be helpful for advertisers during pan India planning.”

While lifestyle as a genre is considered to be a very up-market and for the prosperous sections, the content viewership does not display any major visible difference between upper and lower NCCS. However, news gets more attention from the upper NCCS during the weekends, compared to the weekdays.

Viewing habits of upper and lower NCCS during weekdays

During weekends, in late night hours, serials have a higher share of viewership than film-based content in urban and megacities of India. This is breaking the myth that film-based content leads share of viewership late night during weekends.

After primetime

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