C&S currently stands at 126 million households: TAM Study

As per the research, C&S and Digital grew by 5 percent and 61% percent respectively in TAM reported markets and C&S currently stands at 126 million households, all India level. The 42 million digital households showed growth of 63 percent.

Impatient Generation is a quick, reader friendly compilation of the past year's TV viewing trends across various channel genres and regions in India. This annual feature attempts to update you as an advertiser/marketer on where the best match of your Target Group could be available. For the TV Broadcaster and Production Houses, the idea is to share some perspective of where, when and how TV audiences are changing in their tastes and preferences, what they are rejecting as programme offering Vs. what is getting accepted. The dynamics that shape an average Indian household viewer's relationship with TV each day starting from morning to evening is another block that this TAM feature attempts to throw light on.

Viewing pattern in regional TV market showed increase in digital penetration. In TamilNadu, digital penetration increased by 17 percent and showed increase in viewership because time spent levels increased by 3 percent. Tamil GECs, Music & Sports witnessed increase in viewership.

In Andhra Pradesh, digital penetration has just touched percent in Andhra Pradesh market, while overall Time Spent on TV is high (over 3 hours daily); its growth is just 1percent over 2010.

In Karnataka, Kannada GECs shows the news on growth track in viewership, while serials has provided almost 3 times ROI, the growth in viewing for this genre has continued to be excellent with an average of almost 20 percent in 2011.

Kerala viewed fall in Time Spent by 6 percent which has resulted in overall TV viewing coming down in 2011. But new channels have resulted in a growth in viewing again the last few weeks of 2011. Malayalam GECs dominate with a lion share of 50 percent with News, Movies and Music following and the Malayalam Kids content pick up the viewing with the launch of new channel 'Kochu TV.

In West Bengal, viewership of Bangla regional has witnessed a steady & fast growth from 5 percent share in the year 2000 to 43 percent as of 2011, eating into Hindi Channels.

In Mahrashtra, total TV viewing remained steady; viewership of Marathi Regional has seen a growth over last year. The growth is seen maximum on Digital TV platforms (31 percent), as compared to Analog set of viewers (13 percent). Unlike 2010, the Marathi GEC genre had prioritized the airtime mostly for the higher ROI generating contents like Fiction, Movies & Reality shows and the chat shows/ Interviews (in Marathi News Channels) now constitute about 12 percent of airtime contributing about 14 percent of total viewership.

The viewing trends in different genres showed that the viewership of Hindi GECs genre has seen a 6.5 percent dip. In 2011 Hindi GEC genres have shown a consistent growth in 1-hour special fiction episodes during Prime Time on Weekends.

The Hindi movie channels have decreased by 10 percent, in terms of number of unique movies aired in 2011, both airtime & viewership of South dubbed movies has seen a clear growth in the year 2011.

The Hindi general news, share of Hindi news genre witnessed a growth of 10 percent in 2011 after decreasing in 201. Returns from News Bulletins have witnessed an appreciable increase while viewing proportion from telecast of Review/Reports has witnessed a decline across years.

The English Entertainment's overall GRPs have increased by almost 50 percent with Reach & Time Spent contributing to the gain. The digital penetration increasing in key Metro markets have led to greater access for the channels and the growth in Consumption led by Time Spent is showing a 15 percent-20 percent increase.

Kids channel witnessed 18 percent share of growth path in overall genre with new channel launches in 2011. Today, 14 channels constitute the genre. The Reach levels for 10-14 years age band has improved in 2011, with the increase in Number of Channels, Kids genre witnessed a continuous increase in viewership share since 2008. Kids at home are faster in adapting to Digital TV platforms with growth rate touching almost 60 percent in 2011.

In terms of Sports, sports genre witnessed 200 million unique viewers in year 2011 and there has been 18 percent rise in Sports content on TV during Year 2011. Live sports coverage continued to garner over 50 percent of the viewing for any sports content. Year 2011, saw 35 percent growth in advertising volumes, but 70% of volumes continued to be garnered by cricket.

There has been a growth in ratings for Regional Movies and Events as compared to Hindi Movies and Events. Delhi, Maharashtra, UP & Gujarat have been the Top performing markets for Hindi GECs genre across the years and the viewership returns from Metros have seen a slight drop.

This report was launched by Mr. Ajay Maken, Hon'ble Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports, Ms. Bhavna Doshi, President, Indian Merchant Chamber and Mr. LV Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research along with other committee directors of IMC.