Has viewership of connected devices surpassed TV news channels?

In a big news scenario, it’s given that people rush to their television sets to catch up with the latest developments with the news channels offering non-stop coverage.

In this context, a Wednesday headline caught our eye that suggested ‘YouTube was a preferred medium on January 22, 2024, during Ayodhya Ram Mandir's consecration’.

A small survey comprising 1,000 respondents conducted by leading Ad Tech Platform iCubesWire revealed that 54% of people chose YouTube as a primary source of information on the Ram Temple inauguration.

Although the survey was conducted among social media platforms, BestMediaInfo.com decided to put it on a larger canvas by comparing connected devices numbers with those of Hindi news channels.

Soon after the consecration ceremony, BestMediaInfo.com reported the YouTube numbers of popular Hindi news channels as these channels recorded their highest-ever viewership with Aaj Tak crossing 18 lakh peak concurrent viewers.

A deep dive into the data threw surprising outcomes when we put them in the context of television viewership.

Let us be clear that the connected devices numbers are absolute while the viewership data of TV news channels picked for comparison are only available on a rolled basis, courtesy of BARC India’s four-week rolling average. But this is how TV ratings are.

During the peak consecration hours (12-1.30 pm), Aaj Tak Connected Devices recorded 1,289 AMA (000s) during the one-and-a-half hours.

The TV viewership of Aaj Tak was 1,016 AMA (000s) followed by News18 India – 866 AMA (000s), Republic Bharat – 635 AMA (000s), India TV – 469 AMA (000s) and TV9 Bharatvarsh – 405 AMA (000s) (Source: BARC, 15+ HSM 24 Hrs Jan 22, 2024).

Brands have always been considering TV news as a reach medium. Hence it is important to compare the reach numbers of TV news channels with their connected devices.

Aaj Tak Connected Devices recorded a reach of 16 million on Jan 22 which is almost at par with the reach of the TV news channel. It was only behind News18 India (24 million), Aaj Tak (22 million) and Republic Bharat (20 million).

The reach of Aaj Tak Connected Devices was equivalent to the television reach of TV9 Bharatvarsh at 16 million.

The third important parameter is engagement or average time spent (ATS).

Aaj Tak Connected Devices recorded an ATS of 31 minutes on the consecration day followed by Aaj Tak TV news channel’s 27 minutes.

In comparison, India TV recorded an ATS of 25.33 minutes, Republic Bharat – 24.32 minutes, News18 India – 24.07 minutes and TV9 Bharatvarsh – 22.48 minutes.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com