BENGALURU: After the dingdong struggle between the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV and pubcaster Doordarshan’s (DD) English news channel DD India for first rank, is there another skirmish in the offing in the English news genre for second place? Once supremo of the English news genre – Times Now and DD India are now vying for second rank or so it seems. Since week 13 of 2019 when Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) recommenced publishing viewership data in the public domain, Times Now was consistently ranked third until week 21 of 2019 when it climbed up to second rank, only to drop to third place a week later. Times Now once again climbed up a place to second rank in week 23, retain the same rank in week 24, dropped to third rank in week 25 and then clambered up again to second rank in week 26 of 2019 (Saturday, 22 June 2019 to Friday, 28 June 2019, week under review).
In the tussle between Republic TV and DD India, the latter lost the struggle post week 20 at rank 2, to plunge to rank 4 in week 22 and then gradually clambered up to rank 2(https://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/viewership/barc-week-25-dd-india-back-in-second-spot-190629)
in the previous week, only to come down to rank 3 during the week under review.
Viewership dips again
After a small increase in the previous week, the combined weekly impressions of BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English news channels fell slightly in week 26 of 2019. Ratings of a number of channels have been affected(https://indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/viewership/barc-week-23-english-news-ratings-plunge-190614)by BARC having reverted to an earlier method for treating landing pages since week 23 of 2019 and also because the timings of the ICC World Cup cricket tourney that is on currently in England and Wales overlap primetime of most genres. In a cricket crazy country like India, well, cricket viewership wins.
Please refer to chart below.
Top 5 English news channels
Republic TV retained its first rank in BARC’s weekly list for top 5 English news channels (All India (U+R): NCCS AB: Males 22+ Individuals) in week 26 of 2019 with 0.579 million weekly impressions as compared to 0.572 million weekly impressions in week 25. As mentioned above, Times Now climbed up to second place during the week under review with 0.428 million weekly impressions as compared to third rank and 0.402 million weekly impressions in week 24.
At third rank was DD India in week 26 of 2019 with 0.407 million weekly impressions as compared to 0.441 million weekly impressions in the previous week. Climbing up a place to fourth rank in week 26 of 2019 was CNN News18 with 0.284 million weekly impressions as compared to fifth rank and 0.261 million weekly impressions in week 25. Dropping a place to fifth rank was India Today Television with 0.220 million weekly impressions in week 26 0f 2019 as compared to fourth rank and 0.264 million weekly impressions in the previous week.
