As India is relaxing restrictions of lockdown and opening offices the television viewership has started to decline according to data released by BARC-Nielsen.
The viewership reached the highest level in week 13 (March 28th to 3rd April) after that it started to drop. In week 20 there has been a 20% and 16% fall in weekly viewing minutes and daily time spent watching TV respectively compared to that in week 13.
The number of individuals watching television all 7 days a week also dropped from 328 million to 307 million. Due to lack of fresh, original shows, non-primetime viewership continues to operate higher than pre-COVID levels while primetime viewership is 13% lower than pre-COVID levels.
In week 20, the Kids genre has grown to 9% while views of general entertainment channels have reduced by 1%. News and Movies genres remain stable at 15% and 21% shares.
Many channels have chosen to broadcast classic mythological shows in lack of fresh content hence mythology-based programming stood at 1,671 hrs for the week, which is more than double that of the 777 hrs before the lockdown began. However, now people seem to be bored with old shows as despite continuous increase in mythological shows, their viewership is dropping.
