India records highest TV consumption in a week with total time spent of 1.27 trillion minutes

MUMBAI: Indians are spending more time watching television with every passing week of the nationwide lockdown.

In the week ended April 3 (week 13 of 2020), Indians have spent 1.27 trillion minutes — the highest ever in a week — watching TV.

The latest TV and smartphone consumption report by BARC India and Nielsen shows that compared with the pre-Covid-19 period (January 11-31), TV consumption has jumped 43% in week 13. Average daily reach has gone up by another 12% to 627 million (from 560 million) and daily time spent per user has also gone up to 4 hours and 48 minutes, from 3 hours and 46 minutes in pre-Covid19 time.

Viewers are not just watching for more hours, but also flipping more channels — 23 on an average — for content. Also, while the 7-11 pm primetime viewership has recorded 11% growth in viewership, the non-primetime has witnessed an 81% increase.

Viewers are also watching TV till late in the night (1-2 am) and starting early in the morning (4-6 am), show the data.

Interestingly, sports genre, which has been recording a drop for the last two weeks in absence of any live sports, witnessed an 21% increase over week 12 on the back of classic cricket matches on Star Sports and the launch of WWE Blockbusters on Sony Sports Network.


Movie genre drives growth

While TV news and movie genres have clocked all-time high growth, the total expansion in TV viewership was driven by the movie genre in week 13.

At a higher base, the movie genre saw a 77% jump in viewership over January. Also, 54% viewers spent over 1 hour on the genre, and the number has been growing week-on-week, BARC data suggest.

DD National the new leader

In absence of fresh content, Doordarshan’s strategy to bring back old classics including ‘Ramayan’, ‘Mahabharat’, ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ and ‘Shaktiman’ has worked wonders for the channel as it has become the category leader in general entertainment.

Also, during the airing of ‘Ramayan’ — 9-10:30 am and 9-10:30 pm — DD National’s viewership was higher than the combined viewership of the rest of the Hindi general entertainment channels. The viewership of the two slots on DD has jumped by more than 390 times and 450 times, respectively.