BARC ratings: Huge surge in news viewership hurts Hindi GECs in Week 30

Among Hindi GECs, SAB TV is the lone gainer; Times Now and AajTak lead English and Hindi news genres, respectively, with huge margins

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | August 7, 2015

Week 30 of 2015 has been witness to several important developments and incidents in the country. The sad and sudden demise of former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the Gurdaspur terror attack and Yakub Memon's trial and hanging – all happened in this week. This has resulted in the news genre to witness a significant increase in viewership, which invariably affected the viewership of Hindi GECS.

Furthermore, television coverage of Dr Kalam's funeral in Rameswaram also garnered spike in viewership across Tamil News, making it the second biggest news genre in Week 30 as seen in the grid below...

Given the combined impact of highly sensitive Breaking News in Week 30:

• News genre gained by 127,847 Rat'000(sum) at all India level
• Hindi GEC in HSM fell by 101,404 Rat'000(sum)
• Hindi News in HSM increased 107,810 Rat'000(sum)
• Kids Genre increased by 9,410 Rat'000(sum) on Tuesday as schools were closed in many parts of India

Hindi GECs:

According to select data made available by BARC for Week 30 (July 25 – July 31) for HSM, 1L+ Individuals, Star Plus continued to remain the top Hindi GEC, but saw a drop in its gross viewership by 36 million. Star Plus' gross rating in Week 30 was recorded at 367 million, as against the 403 million viewership it enjoyed in the previous week.

Like Star Plus, Colors' viewership, too, was down by 30 million as it garnered a gross rating of 348 million as against the 383 million it fetched in Week 29.

Zee TV wasn't affected much as its gross rating stood at 258 million as opposed to 263 million in last week.

Well, after dethroning Sony TV from the 5th spot, SAB TV looks good to take give Life OK a run for its money at the 4th spot. Both Life OK and SAB TV got a gross rating of 221 million, but the former managed to hold on to the 4th spot by a few thousand TVTs. SAB TV, that had a gross rating of 199 million in Week 29, added 22 million more viewership in Week 30.

Top shows:

There was no change in the top two shows as Stars Plus' Saath Nibhana Saathiya fetched an average viewership of 5.5 million, while Zee TV's Kumkum Bhagya got 5.4 million.

Colors' show Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi, that was at No. 5 last week, jumped to the third spot with 5.2 million. Sasural Simar Ka, another Colors show, posted 5.1 million (same as week 29) to retain the 4th spot. Stars Plus' Yeh Hai Mohabbatein dropped to fifth spot with an average rating of 4.6 million.

English news:

That was the tale of the Hindi GECs, but the real story in Week 30 has come in the news genre with both English and Hindi news channels cashing onto the sad demise of a former President, the brouhaha before and after the death of Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon, and Gurdaspur terror attacks.

According to data for Week 30 (All India : NCCS AB : Males 22+ : Individuals : C&S 1Lac+) Times Now reached a new peak with 1038 TVT, nearly 50 per cent more than Week 29 (568 TVT)

India Today Television saw over 50 per cent rise in its viewership as it garnered 454 TVT to reclaim the second spot it lost to News X in Week 29.

NDTV 24 X 7 came from nowhere to take the third spot with 401 TVT.

Hindi news:

The real gainers though were the Hindi news channels as the major players saw a spurt in their viewership.

As per BARC data for Week 30 (HSM : NCCS All : Individuals : C&S 1Lac+), AajTak continued to rule the roost with 60594 TVT, a massive gain of 21,003 TVT from Week 29, where it got 39,591 TVT. The channel was way ahead than its close competitors.

India TV gained in nearly 10,000 TVT, as it viewership rose to 48,446 TVT in Week 30.

ABP News stayed third, but saw a sharp rise in viewership by gaining 16, 512 TVT from the previous week. ABP clocked 46,565 TVT in Week 30.

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