BENGALURU: Overall television consumption increased slightly in Week 22 of 2020 (Saturday, 30 May 2020 to Friday, 5 June 2020, week or period under review) according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data as compared to the previous week (Week 21 of 2020). BARC data reveals that TV consumption in terms of weekly impressions increased to 16.4 billion during the week under review from 16.3 billion in the previous week. However, on analysis of BARC data for top 10 or top 5 channels of various genres/languages in the public domain, it seems that GECs’ continued to lose viewership, if not the GEC genre across languages, then at least the top 5 or 10 GEC channels of most languages had lower consumption in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to  Week 21. The top 10 Hindi GECs’ on all platforms, on the Pay and Free Platforms as well as in Urban and Rural India had lower weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the preceding week. The Top 5 Hindi Movies channels in Urban and Rural India saw viewership increase slightly, as did Hindi Movies on the Pay platform. The Top 5 Hindi Movies channels on the Free Platform saw a dip in viewership during the week under review as compared to the previous week.

News channels and movies channels seemed to be the biggest gainers, and of course, in the case of the Top 5 Kannada channels for which production of new content had begun on June 1, 2020 also gained viewership. It must be noted that the Top 5 News Channels ofthree South Indian languages -Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu had lower weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Hindi and English News channels along with Assamese, Bangla, Oriya and Tamil News channels garnered higher weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. The 2 Hindi Business News channels saw a 25 percent increase in weekly impressions in Week 22 as compared to Week 21 of 2020, while the 3 English Business News channels which have a lower consumption than the 2 Hindi Business News channels saw Weekly Impressions in Week 22 decline 17 percent as compared to Week 21 of 2020.

Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres declined by 2.9 percent in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. All of the ten channels in the list were the same as in the previous week with some changes in the rankings.

One of the most significant changes was the Sun TV Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV slipping to third place with an 8.2 percent decline in weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 from rank 2 in the previous week. Despite a 2.5 percent decline in weekly ratings from the previous week, Star India’s flagship Hindi GEC Star Plus replaced Sun TV at second rank in Week 22 of 2020.

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Channels on All Platforms Across Genres comprised of four Hindi GECs’, three Hindi Movies channels and one channel each from the Kids, Tamil and Telugu genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were three channels from Star India, two channels each from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) and one channel each from, Enterr 10 Television, the Sun Tv Network, Viacom18.  While Dangal is available on both the pay TV and FTA platforms, Zeel’s acquired Hindi GEC Big Magic is FTA. The other eight channels were Pay TV. It must be noted that Dangal, Sony SAB and Zee Cinemagarnered higher weekly impressions in Week 22 of 2020 than in week 21, despite the lower combined ratings of the Top 10 channels in the list.
Please refer to the figure below:

Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres

The combined weekly impressions of the Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres declined 3.4 percent in Week 22 of 2020 as compared to the previous week. Nine of the ten channels in the list in the week under review were the same as in Week 21 of 2020 with some changes in the ranks. One channel – Viacom18’s flagship Hindi GEC Colors exited BARC’s Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres list in Week 22 of 2020 an was replaced by Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav at tenth place.

There were three channels each from the Hindi GECs’ and Hindi Movies genres, two Telugu channels and one channel each from the Kids and Tamil genres in BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Pay Channels Across Genres in week 19 of 2020.  There were four channels from Star India, two channels each from SPN and the Sun Tv Network and one channel each from Viacom18 and Zeel in the list. While 8 of the channels in the list in Week 22 of 2020 from the previous week’s list had lower weekly impressions, Zeel’s Hindi Movies channels Zee Cinema had higher weekly impressions in the week under review as compared to the previous week.

Please refer to the chart below:

Top 10 Free Channels on Across Genres

BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres shows that the combined weekly impressions of the top 10 channels in Week 22 of 2020 were 4.3 percent lower than in Week 21. Nine of the 10 channels in the list in Week 22 of 2020 were the same as in week 21 with some shuffling in the ranks.Zeel’s Youth channels Zing exited the list in Week 22 of 2020 and was replaced by Viacom18’ Hindi Movies channel Rishtey Cineplex.

There were four channels from the Hindi Movies genre and three channels each from the Bhojpuri and Hindi GEC genresin BARC’s weekly list of Top 10 Free Channels Across Genres for Week 22 of 2020, There were three channels each from Zeel and Enterr 10 Television, two channels from B4U Network and one channel each from the pubcaster network Doordarshan or DD  and Viacom18 during the period under review.

Please refer to the chart below: