BENGALURU: Arnab Goswami-headed Indian English news channel Republic TV has continued an uninterrupted lead of the genre since its launch in May 2017. Republic TV led the genre with 0.553 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2018 (Saturday, 7 April 2018 to Friday, 13 April 2018) according to Broadcast Audience Research Council of India’s weekly data for the top-five English news channels—All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : males 22+ individuals. BARC had reported 0.652 million weekly impressions for Republic TV for week 14 of 2018.
In the meanwhile, the ratings of the genre have recorded a new nadir–the lowest combined weekly ratings of the top-five English news channels for 2018 until week 15 were 1.678 million impressions, 19 per cent lower than the previous weeks combined ratings of the top-five English news channels of 2.071 million impressions in the previous week. The 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 11) commenced in week 15 of 2018 and the ratings of news television channels were most likely affected. Most of the matches are played during the primetime of GECs, news channels as well as other genres.
All the five channels in BARC’s list remained the same with the same ranks in week 15 of 2018 as compared with week 14. As a matter of fact, the first three ranked channels have retained their places and order in BARC’s weekly list of the top-five English news channels through the first 15 weeks of 2018. All the channels, however, had lower ratings in week 15 as compared with week 14 of 2018.
Republic TV was followed by Goswami’s former channel–Times Now–for which BARC reported ratings of 0.488 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2018. Times Now had ratings of 0.595 million weekly impressions in the previous week. Continuing on at its regular third rank was India Today Television with 0.265 million weekly impressions in the week under review as compared with 0.363 million weekly impressions in the previous week.
At fourth rank was CNN News18 with 0.219 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2018 as against 0.293 million weekly impressions in week 14. At fifth rank was the Prannoy and Radhika Roy led NDTV 24x7 with 0.153 million weekly impressions in week 15 as compared with 0.168 million weekly impressions in week 14 of 2018
