BARC India and Nielsen have released the 11th edition of TV and Smartphone consumption which explains the impact of COVID-19 on TV and Digital Media Behaviour across India.
BARC and Nielsen’s report titled Deep Dive into Content & Advertising Consumption as ‘Originals’ return on TV shows the difference in consumption patterns of consumers from the Pre-COVID period that is 11th Jan’20 – 31st Jan’20 to COVID disruption period that is 15th August – 21st August 2020.
The report highlights that in Week 33, total TV viewership recorded 1.08 trillion viewing minutes. The TV viewership has shown a consistent growth in the last 12 weeks. It was 22% higher than pre-COVID viewing. Also, the daily average reach, at 600 million, is 7% higher than pre-COVID time.
The average daily time spent stands at 4 hours 17 minutes in Week 33, which is still 13% higher than the pre-COVID levels. We can also witness in the past few weeks is primetime shows’ consistent growth in the last 12 weeks. However, non-primetime shows continue to operate at 44% higher than pre-COVID levels.
With 307 million individuals watched TV on all 7 days of the week in week 33 that is 68 million greater than PRE- COVID, in week 33 Total TV consumption is greater than PRE COVID across all markets with India at 43%, HSM at 49% and South at 44% growth in peak period over Pre- COVID while we see growth in Week 33 over Pre COVID for which India stands at 22%, HSM at 24% and South at 17%.
Then for News & movies after peaking in Weeks 12 & 14 respectively, have stabilized. Similarly, Kids genre, after peaking to 9% share, has stabilized to the pre-COVID levels.