Sensing ratings suspension, Republic Bharat made No. 3 pushing India TV to fifth position

Sensing the impending suspension of TRP ratings for the news genre, Arnab Goswami’s Republic Bharat secured the No. 3 spot in the Hindi news pecking order to remain in advertisers’ media plans as they typically select the top three channels in the absence of TRP ratings.

Goswami, who did not sign the NBF letter sent to the I&B Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday opposing any suspension of ratings, seemingly left the members of his association to fight on their own and focussed on cementing his channel’s position among the top three players.

Goswami is widely known as a master of bypassing any system and as a person who does the unthinkable, whether it's alleged collusion with former BARC CEOs or implicating one of his competitor channels by placing that channel on a dual LCN on a friendly cable network.

This time around, he made Republic Bharat No. 3, pushing his fierce competitor India TV to the corner by utilising second landing pages. This approach is both cost-effective and fool-proof, as it is not considered the first tune-in by the BARC system

The data coming from the second landing page largely passes the outlier filter put in place by BARC if such landing pages are spread across the country.

And the internal data gathered by BestMediaInfo.com showed Republic Bharat’s presence on the second landing pages across 28 states and Union Territories.

Republic Bharat is present on the second landing pages of large MSOs such as InCable/NXT, SITI Cable, ACN-GTPL Hathway and Damoh Cable.

Latest ratings of the Hindi news channels

According to the ratings for the rolling Week 31 of 2023 between July 29, 2023, and August 04, 2023, for the TG: 15+ NCCS All HSM(U+R) 24 hrs TV only, News18 was at the top with a relative share of 15.3%.

It was followed by Aaj Tak with a relative share of 13.1%.

Republic Bharat jumped two positions up to No. 3 by garnering a 12.8% relative share.

At No. 4, TV9 Bharatvarsh recorded a relative share of 12.6%.

Rajat Sharma’s India TV slipped to No. 5 in a crucial week and could manage a relative share of 12.2%.

Times Now Navbharat continued with its promising run with a relative share of 10.1%.

ABP News was at No. 7 with a 7% relative share.

News Nation was at No. 8 with a relative share of 6.2%.

Good News Today was at No. 9 with a 5.3% relative share.

News24 was at No. 10 with a relative share of 2.8%.

The pecking order and relative shares of individual channels for TV + OOH TV were more or less the same.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com