Airtel Xstream’s RPD data pegs India TV in No. 1 position

With the resumption of BARC data for TV news ratings earlier this month, the race and claims for the numero uno position has started again amongst the news channels. And this battle will only get fiercer in the coming months. So far, BARC India has been the sole industry ratings body for television audience measurement in India. Last month, Airtel started to commercially provide the viewership data from its Xstream set-top boxes using the Return Path Data (RPD) method.

It may be recalled that in March 2018, BARC India had announced that it had tied up with Airtel DigitL TV, Airtel’s DTH arm, for including its subscriber homes into the BARC India RPD Panel. This partnership will provide fillip to BARC India’s plan of scaling up panel homes to multiples of the mandated 50,000.

As per industry reports, there are around 10 lakh Airtel Xstream subscribers across India. The service primarily caters to high-end consumers in NCCS A+ and NCCS A markets. Airtel is in the process of onboarding broadcasters as clients for its RPD data from Airtel Xstream. India TV has signed on as its first client.

As per data for Week 7 to Week 10 of 2022, Airtel Xstream | HSM | 0600 hrs to 2400 hrs, in terms of relative share (basis 12 Hindi News channels), India TV is the No. 1 channel, garnering 17% weekly share of the number of impressions. Aaj Tak follows in the second position with 15% share, Zee News and R Bharat have 11% share each.

 

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Media