News channels have recorded the highest growth of viewership in H1 2020 (till week 26) compared to that of H1 2019 while Sports genre lost more than half of its viewership this year, according to the data released by BARC-Nielsen.
Total TV consumption has increased by 9%. Because of lockdown, people stayed at home keeping themselves entertained by watching TV which resulted in a 14% of non-primetime viewership, overall primetime viewers also grew by 4%.
Genre-wise, GEC and movies viewership grew by 2% and 19% respectively throughout the day. News genre registered the highest rise across the full day slot at 43%, its non-prime time views increased by 41% and primetime registered a whopping 48% rise in H1 2020. Kids channels saw a 32% growth in viewership.
Coronavirus pandemic has changed the viewership share. Movies, News and Kids share have shown growth whereas the share of GEC and Sports genre has shrunk by 3% due to non-availability of new fresh shows or live sports.
Comparing week 26 (June 27- July 3) to that of in pre-COVID period (Jan 11- Jan31), the Total TV viewership registered a growth of 15%. However, as the country is reopening the weekly viewing minutes dropped by 20% and the number of channels watched by per user in a week also came down from 23 to 19 channels versus week 13.
With people getting used to the new normal, the weekly viewership share is returning back to the levels it was in pre-COVID period. News channels are recording a decline in their viewership, it dropped by 10% since week 12. In the last 5 weeks, ratings of GEC have increased by 5% whereas movies genre share dropped by 5% since week 14.
