Television
TV viewing reaches 12-month high in January 2026, Nielsen reports
Nielsen Gauge shows cable surges 9 per cent, streaming holds 47 per cent share amid sports and drama boosts.
MUMBAI: When winter chills hit and big games kick off, viewers didn’t just stay in, they stayed glued. Nielsen’s latest Gauge report shows total TV and streaming consumption climbed to a 12-month peak in January 2026, up 3.7 per cent from December, driven by a potent mix of high-stakes sports, returning broadcast dramas and colder weather keeping people indoors.
Cable led the charge with the biggest monthly jump, capturing 21.2 per cent of total TV usage (up 1.0 percentage point). Cable sports viewing exploded 49 per cent over December, fuelled by ESPN’s coverage of the College Football Playoffs quarterfinals, semifinals and championship, included sending ESPN’s viewing soaring 82 per cent. Cable news also rode an active news cycle, rising 13 per cent, with Fox News Channel up 17 per cent and CNN jumping 29 per cent. Together, ESPN and FOX News each claimed 2.2 per cent of total TV usage, accounting for 21 per cent of January’s cable viewing.
Broadcast held strong at 21.5 per cent of TV (up 4.2 per cent month-on-month), anchored by NFL dominance, the top 15 broadcast telecasts were all football games, giving sports 30 per cent of the category. Dramas bounced back 24 per cent, with ABC’s High Potential emerging as the month’s most-watched drama. Broadcast news gained 10 per cent, led by ABC World News Tonight.
Streaming proved its staying power after December’s record highs, growing 2.7 per cent month-on-month and commanding 47.0 per cent of total TV usage. Netflix mirrored the category’s resilience with a steady 1 per cent increase to 8.8 per cent of TV, holding the top streaming programme for a second month as Stranger Things racked up 15.4 billion viewing minutes. Peacock jumped 10 per cent to 1.8 per cent of TV, boosted by the new season of The Traitors and NFL simulcasts on NBC most noticeably on 18 January during the L.A. Rams vs Chicago Bears Divisional Playoff, which drove a 78 per cent spike over its monthly average.
Free ad-supported platforms kept pace, Tubi rose 6 per cent to 2.1 per cent of TV, while The Roku Channel gained 5 per cent to hold its platform-high 3.0 per cent share for a second straight month.
The January data covers four weeks from 29 December 2025 to 25 January 2026, following Nielsen’s Monday-start broadcast calendar. In a media landscape where every screen fights for eyes, January proved that when sports roar and dramas return, the living room still wins, even if the remote is within arm’s reach of the streaming button.
Sports
KKR rolls out pan-India OOH and multilingual branding for IPL 2026
Franchise blends local languages and large-scale outdoor to deepen fan connect
KOLKATA: Kolkata Knight Riders have kicked off an expansive branding campaign for the Indian Premier League 2026 season, combining large-scale outdoor advertising with multilingual outreach to connect with fans across the country.
In their home base, the franchise has turned the city into a sea of purple and gold with a high-visibility outdoor push spanning over 75,000 square feet. The campaign includes 65 billboards across key locations, along with branded pillars, pole kiosks, LED boards and metro integrations, amplifying the team’s presence across Kolkata.
A standout element is a hand-painted mural on a four-storey building at Rashbehari Avenue near Bijan Setu. Inspired by ‘Prothom Bhalobasha KKR’, the artwork celebrates the idea of “first love” in Bengali and features Varun Chakravarthy, Ajinkya Rahane and Rinku Singh alongside the team’s rallying cry, “Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo”. The mural has quickly become a fan hotspot, drawing both footfall and social media buzz.
Taking the campaign beyond Kolkata, KKR has also introduced specially branded team buses in every away city. Each bus carries the franchise slogan translated into the local language of the host city, adding a regional touch to its national presence.
The initiative began in Mumbai ahead of KKR’s first away fixture, with the slogan adapted into Marathi. Over the season, the campaign will travel across seven cities and languages, including Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi, Telugu and Chhattisgarhi, aiming to strike a more personal chord with local audiences.
“This season, we wanted to go beyond visibility and create moments of genuine cultural connection for our fans,” said Knight Riders Sports chief marketing officer Binda Dey. She added that seeing the team’s slogan in regional languages is meant to feel like recognition rather than just advertising.
The campaign is part of a broader push by KKR to deepen fan engagement, alongside initiatives such as Knights Unplugged 3.0 and fan meet-ups across cities.
As the IPL caravan moves from city to city, KKR’s message is travelling with it, speaking not just in one voice, but in many.
