BARC India updates TV Universe; total TV Viewership jumps up by 18%
TV HHs grow faster in NCCS B and C, thus increasing the share of the middle class. While NCCS A drops from 22% to 21%, NCCS B and C go up from 24% to 27% and 31% to 32% respectively NCCS D/E on the other hand has de-grow from 23% to 20%
BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | March 2, 2017

BARC India has released its weekly viewership data for Week 8 of 2017 basis a revised Universe Estimate (UE), which is based on the results of Broadcast India Survey - the largest ever Research Study undertaken to ascertain TV universe & Television Viewing Habits in India. With this, BARC India has updated and aligned its TV Universe in line with ground level changes in demographics, TV ownership and connection type, language preference, changes in NCCS profiles etc.
BestMediaInfo.com had published an in-depth analysis about the implications of BARC’s new universe for the television industry earlier this week on Monday.
Fieldwork for the Broadcast India Survey was carried out over Nov 2015 to Feb 2016, and covered 3,00,000 homes across 590 Districts comprising of about 4300 Towns/Villages. All 1 Lakh+ towns were covered, while towns below 1 Lakh were selected by a Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) method.
With the new UE, Week 8 has seen a significant increase of 18% in Total TV viewership in the country. Total TV impressions have grown from 22.7 billion in week 7 to 26.7 billion impressions in week 8.

Partho Dasgupta
“BI 2016 is one of the biggest survey’s done in the country so far. The TV universe in India is ever growing and changing and so is the profile and choice of a TV viewer. The last survey done was in 2013 and the last Census was in 2011. The consumer and viewer landscape is changing rapidly - with electrification, prosperity, changing modes of signal and digitisation. We wanted to reflect this change in viewership numbers and hence conducted our own Establishment Survey. This will help our subscribers and the eco system align their strategies for better targeting. The new reality is TV viewership is rapidly growing and how,” said Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India.
The study also highlights the fact that TV HHs have grown faster in NCCS B and C, thus increasing the share of the middle class. While NCCS A has dropped from 22% to 21%, NCCS B and C have gone up from 24% to 27% and 31% to 32% respectively. NCCS D/E on the other hand has de-grown from 23% to 20%. These trends are in line with fragmentation of family sizes (leading to lower average family sizes) and rising economic growth and rising prosperity. It also shows that India has more nuclear families without elders than ever before, and it is also the dominant family group among TV owning homes. While composition of joint families in the universe has come down from 26% to 22%, nuclear families with elders has grown from 53% to 58%.
Some key changes have been seen in the BI study like electrification, migration, digitisation, rise in smaller and nuclear family culture, increase in middle class, inclusion of rural markets and single TV households which has an impact on TV viewership behaviour.
BI-2016, the report based on the survey, contains not just an updated count and composition of TV homes across urban and rural India, but also offers data and insights that would be of immense value to marketers and advertisers. It contains granular data and information on media consumption habits of Indians, as well as select durable ownership and packaged goods purchase profiles. It is an updated database of Indian consumer behaviour.
Every genre has seen a significant growth in viewership, owing to the new Universe Estimate. The Highlights of Week 8 Data are:
Week:8 Top 5 Channels - Hindi GEC |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
STAR Plus |
712076 |
2 |
Colors |
640525 |
3 |
Rishtey |
537507 |
4 |
Sony Pal |
523334 |
5 |
Zee TV |
508260 |
HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 5 Channels - Hindi GEC Urban |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
STAR Plus |
476677 |
2 |
Colors |
429120 |
3 |
Sony Entertainment Television |
324587 |
4 |
Zee TV |
281062 |
5 |
SONY SAB |
269453 |
HSM (Urban) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 5 Channels - Hindi GEC Rural |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Rishtey |
409571 |
2 |
Zee Anmol |
400799 |
3 |
Sony Pal |
373988 |
4 |
STAR Utsav |
342382 |
5 |
STAR Plus |
235398 |
HSM (Rural) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi Movies |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Sony MAX |
434571 |
2 |
Sony Wah |
414650 |
3 |
Zee Cinema |
364194 |
HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi Movies Urban |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Sony MAX |
255351 |
2 |
STAR Gold |
217667 |
3 |
Zee Cinema |
197575 |
HSM (Urban) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi Movies Rural |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Sony Wah |
314442 |
2 |
Zee Anmol Cinema |
269749 |
3 |
STAR Utsav Movies |
227191 |
HSM (Rural) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi News |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Aaj Tak |
126940 |
2 |
India TV |
101439 |
3 |
ABP News |
93517 |
HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 15+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi News Urban |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Aaj Tak |
66923 |
2 |
India TV |
56958 |
3 |
Zee News |
52611 |
HSM (Urban) : NCCS All : 15+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Hindi News Rural |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Aaj Tak |
60016 |
2 |
India TV |
44481 |
3 |
ABP News |
43232 |
HSM (Rural) : NCCS All : 15+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - English Business News |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
CNBC TV 18 |
530 |
2 |
ET Now |
255 |
3 |
NDTV Profit and NDTV Prime |
73 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Eng News |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Times Now |
798 |
2 |
India Today Television |
498 |
3 |
CNN News18 |
404 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - English Entertainment |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Zee Café |
275 |
2 |
STAR World |
232 |
3 |
Comedy Central |
230 |
6 Mega Cities : NCCS AB : 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - English Movies |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
STAR Movies |
2639 |
2 |
Movies Now |
2636 |
3 |
Sony PIX |
1883 |
6 Mega Cities : NCCS AB : 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 2 Channels - Hindi Business News |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
CNBC Awaaz |
1787 |
2 |
Zee Business |
1204 |
HSM (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Infotainment |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
History TV 18 |
5567 |
2 |
Discovery Channel |
4897 |
3 |
Animal Planet |
3082 |
6 Mega Cities : NCCS AB : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Kids |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
NICK |
105172 |
2 |
Cartoon Network |
79562 |
3 |
Pogo TV |
73350 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS All : 2 - 14 years Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Music |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Mastiii |
179053 |
2 |
B4U Music |
116500 |
3 |
9XM |
106247 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Sports |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
STAR Sports 3 |
113412 |
2 |
STAR Sports 1 |
90453 |
3 |
Ten 1 |
75244 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Youth |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Zing |
14374 |
2 |
MTV |
9992 |
3 |
Bindass |
7791 |
All India (U+R) : NCCS All : 15 - 21 years Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Lifestyle |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Living Foodz |
1383 |
2 |
Fox Life |
946 |
3 |
FYI TV18 |
796 |
6 Mega Cities : NCCS AB : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Kannada |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Colors Kannada |
375996 |
2 |
Zee Kannada |
295263 |
3 |
Star Suvarna |
253946 |
Karnataka (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Malayalam |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Asianet |
277807 |
2 |
Mazhavil Manorama |
99324 |
3 |
Surya TV |
76831 |
Kerala (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Marathi |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Zee Marathi |
272174 |
2 |
Colors Marathi |
75169 |
3 |
Zee Talkies |
71598 |
Mah/ Goa (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Tamil |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Sun TV |
1010396 |
2 |
KTV |
294777 |
3 |
Zee Tamil |
225022 |
Tamil Nadu/ Puducherry (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Telugu |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Gemini TV |
551814 |
2 |
Zee Telugu |
467322 |
3 |
STAR Maa |
446110 |
AP/ Telangana (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Bhojpuri |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Big Ganga |
35992 |
2 |
Bhojpuri Cinema |
21223 |
3 |
Dangal TV |
12955 |
Bihar/Jharkhand (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Bangla |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
STAR Jalsha |
363445 |
2 |
Zee Bangla |
198257 |
3 |
Jalsha Movies |
76437 |
WB (U+R): NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Oriya |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Sarthak TV |
89468 |
2 |
Tarang TV |
66156 |
3 |
Odisha TV |
32140 |
Odisha (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Punjabi |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
DD Punjabi |
53222 |
2 |
PTC Punjabi |
47270 |
3 |
Chardikla Time TV |
37129 |
Pun / Har / Cha / HP / J&K (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Gujarati |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Colors Gujarati |
13127 |
2 |
ABP Asmita |
7913 |
3 |
TV9 Gujarati |
7469 |
Guj / D&D / DNH (U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals |
|
|
|
Week:8 Top 3 Channels - Assamese |
Rank |
Channels |
Impressions (000s) sum |
1 |
Rang |
15930 |
2 |
News Live 24x7 |
15561 |
3 |
DY 365 |
9156 |
Assam / North East / Sikkim(U+R): NCCS All: 2+ Individuals |
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