TV viewership cools down as India enters Unlock 2.0
Video streaming has managed to hold on to consumers though. At its peak, users spent an average 4 hours 8 minutes per week watching content, which is now 3 hours 42 minutes
NEW DELHI: Television viewership and smartphone usage in India have lost the rapid growth witnessed in the early days of covid-19 lockdown. As the economy unlocks, allowing people to people step out of their homes and resume work, time spent on content consumption has stabilised even as it remains higher than pre-pandemic days.
TV recorded just 15% higher viewership than pre-covid days, a sharp dip from the 43% growth seen at the peak of the lockdown. In southern India, it was worse with 11% higher viewership and in Hindi-speaking markets it was 17%. Average daily time spent is 6% higher than pre-covid days while the number channels watched per viewer per week has come down to 19 from 23.
These findings are part of the 10th report by television monitoring agency BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) and data measurement firm Nielsen on TV viewership and smartphone usage. BARC and Nielsen have taken January as pre-covid period and compared it to data in mid-June.
Number of individuals watching television all seven days of the week has reduced to 301 million from 363 million at its peak.
“TV viewership had spiked initially, it may have trended down now but it is still higher than pre-covid and people will continue to spend on entertainment in recessionary times," Jehil Thakkar, partner at Deloitte India said.
News channels which have been the biggest beneficiaries of quarantine viewing, thanks to the topicality of the pandemic, have lost some share of the viewership pie, coming down to 11% from 21%. Movies, that also saw an uptick, are now at 24% from 29%. GECs (general entertainment channels), which sustained despite no original programming, currently make up 48% of the pie. In fact, GECs that have just resumed shooting and airing originals can see viewers coming back, with Hindi and Telugu language channels duplicating 61% and 69% of their pre-covid viewers respectively.
Understandably, mythological shows that had attained cult status at the peak of lockdown are now losing eyeballs with their viewership across languages having fallen from 119 billion viewing minutes to 46 billion.
Advertising volumes for television for the first half of 2020 are 13% lower year-on-year, on account of the disease and the advertiser count down by 10%.
Smartphone usage, meanwhile, has stabilised with average daily time spent now 7% higher than pre-covid days, as compared to 6% at the beginning of the lockdown and 16% at its peak. Data consumption per user per day is 12% higher versus 8% in the beginning and 21% at peak. Social networking and gaming continue to be higher than pre-covid days but have lost significant steam since April. Video streaming has managed to hold on to consumers though. At its peak, customers spent an average 4 hours 8 minutes per week watching content, which is now at 3 hours 42 minutes.
Though the Indian government’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps acted as the last nail in the coffin, these platforms had seen a steady decline in users and time spent since the Galwan Valley incident. The number of users per week came down by 11% among the 15-24 age group and the number of sessions among males in the same category by 18%.
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