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(L-R) Col Sofia Qureshi, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh
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(L-R) Col Sofia Qureshi, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh
New Delhi: During the India-Pakistan war week, the news genre grew by only 24% in Week 18 over the previous week, revealed BARC India data on Thursday. While the Hindi news genre grew 29%, English news witnessed a spike of 26%.
A four-week rolling average data for the three days of war takes this gain to a mere 48% for the Hindi news genre, with Wednesday and Thursday recording a 47% growth, followed by 51% growth on Friday.
It was Thursday, May 8, when the IPL match in Dharamshala was abandoned midway due to Pakistan’s airstrikes across North Indian cities.
BARC data suggests that the country continued to be hooked to the IPL amidst the unprecedented airstrikes following Operation Sindoor on Wednesday and Thursday.
However, the unfortunate suspension of the IPL could only deliver 4% incremental viewers to the Hindi news genre.
On May 8, the last IPL match before suspension delivered 9,345 AMA (000s) for Star Sports 1 Hindi between 8:30 and 9:30 PM. However, the entire Hindi news genre put together fetched only 4,834 AMA (000s). The data used here for comparison is for Pay TV because Star Sports 1 Hindi is a Pay channel.
A day before, i.e., May 7, Star Sports 1 Hindi garnered 9,144 AMA (000s), whereas the Hindi news genre recorded 3,919 AMA (000s) between 7:30 PM and 11:00 PM.
Effectively, BARC data establishes that as the war intensified, IPL viewership grew from Wednesday to Thursday.
The ironic data reporting by BARC does not stop here.
The first press conference involving Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Col Sofia Qureshi, and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh on Wednesday morning after Operation Sindoor could only fetch 3,527 AMA (000s) for the entire Hindi news genre. The press conference was held at 10:30 AM when no IPL match was being played.
Astonishingly, not a single channel touched 1,000 AMA (000s)—a feat achieved by several news channels in the past on random days, including during the Russia-Ukraine war. However, BARC India data establishes that the first press conference on the India-Pakistan war had fewer viewers. The highest viewership stood at 659 AMA (000s).
The situation worsened further in the second press conference on Thursday between 5:45 PM and 6:25 PM, when the Hindi news genre recorded a mere 2,148 AMA (000s). The highest viewership recorded by individual channels stood at 341 AMA (000s).
The story was no different for the third press conference, as the news genre cornered only 2,256 AMA (000s) between 5:35 PM and 5:55 PM on Friday, with top viewership at 347 AMA (000s).
BestMediaInfo lists below a few inferences drawn from the shocking data: