BENGALURU: In week 5 of 2019 (Saturday, 26 January 2019 to Friday, 1 February 2019), the last week that Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) had published data on its website before the implementation of the new tariff regime, pubcaster Doordarshan’s English News channel DD India had sprung a surprise. DD India had run ahead of all its private peer genre channels and was the most watched English News channel based on viewership data with 1.503 million weekly insertions in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English news channels (All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals) in week 5. The private English News channel Republic News was the second most watched channel in the English news genre with 0.725 million weekly insertions.

This run continued for week 13 of 2019 when BARC restarted publication of viewership data in week 13 of 2019 as well as in week 14. However, in week 15 of 2019 (Saturday, 6 April 2019 to Friday, 12 April 2019) Republic TV managed to claw its way back to numero uno position, closely followed by DD India at second place.

Further the rank of the other three channels in week 15 of 2019 remained the same as in week 14. At the same time. Republic TV and India Today Television gained viewership in week 15 of 2019 as compared to week 14, while the other three channels had lower viewership during the same period as compared to the previous week.

The Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV garnered 0.617 million weekly impressions and first rank in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 0.612 million weekly impressions and second rank in the previous week. DD India was ranked second in the week under consideration with 0.609 million weekly impressions as compared to 0.669 million weekly impressions in week 14 of 2019.

At third rank was Times Now with 0.432 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 0.468 million weekly impressions in week 14. At fourth rank was CNN News18 with 0.259 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 0.302 million weekly impressions in week 14. At fifth rank in week 15 of 2019 was India Today Television with 0.257 million weekly impressions as compared to 0.211 million weekly impressions in week 14.