BENGALURU: Pubcaster Doordarshan’s English news channel DD India has been ranked second or better for 10 weeks across 21 weeks starting week 13 to week 33 of 2019 (Saturday, 10 August 2019 to Friday, 16 August 2019, week or period under review). According to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly data for top 5 English news channels in terms of viewership ratings, initially DD India was in a dingdong struggle for top slot with the Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV, a slot that the latter managed to wrest. During and post the weeks in which the National Election results were announced, DD India acceded second rank to Times Now and maintained third rank for seven weeks in a row after week 25 of 2019.DD India has returned to rank 2 after a hiatus of seven weeks in week 33 of 2019.
To allow for viewership to stabilise after the implementation of TRAI’s new tariff order, BARC India had stopped publishing ratings data in the public domain from week 6 of 2019. On the urging from TRAI, the ratings agency recommenced putting up data starting week 13 of 2019, hence that week has been used as a starting point in this report. Subsequently, BARC changed the manner in which it viewed landing pages and outliers – these actions in concert with other factors have been pulling down viewership numbers of the English news genre.
Please refer to the figure below:
The combined weekly impressions of the top 5 English news channels declined by 11.7 percent in week 33 of 2019 to 2.547 million weekly impressions as compared to 2.885 weekly impressions of the previous week as the interest about the events around the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) started to peter out. The average combined weekly impressions of the top 5 English news channels on analysing BARC data between week 13 and 33 are 2.466 million. The present week (week 44) has seen some more events around J&K as well as the taking into custody of former finance and home minister P Chidambaram. Whether these events will be enough to grow or at least sustain English news viewership has to be seen. Please refer to the figure below for combined viewership of top 5 English news channels in thousands (000s).
Let us see how the top 5 English news channels performed in week 33 of 2019
Except for DD India which saw a surge in viewership, the other channels in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 English news for week 33 of 2019 saw weekly impressions drop. The channels in the list in week 33 of 2019 were the same as in week 32 with a shuffling of ranks. DD India moved up to second rank, as did CNN News18 which moved up to fourth place.
Republic TV retained its first rank with 0.714 million weekly impressions in week 33 of 2019 as compared to 0.871 million weekly impressions in week 32. DD India moved to second rank during the week under review with 0.572 million weekly impressions as compared to third rank and 0.528 million weekly impressions in the previous week. Times Now slid a place to third rank with 0.550 million weekly impressions in week 33 of 2019 as compared to second rank and 0.630 million weekly impressions in week 32. CNN News18 moved up to fourth rank with 0.395 million weekly impressions as compared to fifth rank and 0.417 million weekly impressions in week 32. India Today Television slipped to fifth rank in week 33 of 2019 with 0.316 million weekly impressions as compared to fourth rank and 0.439 million weekly impressions in week 32. Please refer to the figure below:
