HD channels’ viewership share jumped 169% in two years: BARC

HD channels have witnessed a massive growth over the last two years. While the number of channels has gone up by only 41 per cent, the viewership share has grown by a massive 169 per cent, according to BARC Think study on the HD viewership landscape in India. The growth of HD channels over the last 2 years has positively impacted the industry in terms of subscription and advertising revenue, and is becoming a game changer in the quality of television content that is being consumed. 

The study further states that Young Adults and Adults (22-40 years) comprise a large share of HD viewership in India (35 per cent). These are the new-age millennials who seek a good TV viewing experience. On the other hand, Kids and Youth (2-21 years) form the larger share of SD viewership. 

Over the 2-year period from October 2015 to September 2017, the number of active HD channels in India has witnessed a growth. With the launch of many new HD channels, the number has risen from 59 HD channels in 2015 to 83 HD channels in 2017. Of the available 83 HD channels, 50 channels have both SD and HD feeds. 

The BARC report observes that HD channel viewership in India is slightly skewed towards male audiences, who contribute a 51 per cent eyeball share to the overall HD channel viewership, as opposed to SD channels, where no gender skew is observed. 

NCCS A is the largest contributor to HD channel viewership in India, as it is a premium offering. The second highest share of eyeballs comes from NCCS CDE. The viewership of NCCS A and NCCS B are relatively stable, with minor spikes during key events. In contrast, the HD viewership for NCCS CDE seems to be highly fluctuating over time. 

For NCCS A, the rise in HD viewership post Week 16 can be attributed to the growth in viewership of Sports genre HD channels due to IPL 10 (Week 16) and ICC Champions Trophy (Week 22). 

A large majority of HD eyeballs are coming from Urban India (69 per cent), as opposed to SD viewership, where Rural India (52 per cent) contributes the larger share of eyeballs. 

The increasing trend line Week 28 onwards is a result of massive growth of GEC Genre viewing on HD channels. 

HD channel viewership for NCCS CDE peaked in Week 12, which is majorly due to growth in viewing of the GEC and Movie genres. The upward rise between Week 21 and Week 26 can be attributed to the ICC Champions Trophy, as Sports genre on HD channels has grown during this period. 

This may be an indication of the fact that NCCS A and NCCS B are loyal/ habitual viewers of HD and hence, less susceptible to fluctuations. NCCS CDE, on the other hand, are driven to HD by key events.

Ad sector performance

The Services sector is the leading ad sector on HD channels, with the highest FCT and the largest share of views. It is primarily driven by Internet Services and Online Shopping/ E-commerce categories. 

F&B and Personal Care/ Personal Hygiene are among the top 3 performing sectors in terms of FCT as well as Impressions, not only on HD but on SD channels as well. These sectors seem to have competitive mass advertisers as they are being driven by the same categories on both channels. 

The presence of Auto & Durables categories in the top 10 on HD is also not surprising, as the audience is presumably more affluent, and thus has spending power. 

With respect to air-time and Impressions, the top 10 Ad sectors with highest FCT are also the most viewed in terms of share of eyeballs. The only exception is the Personal Accessories Sector. 

Genre trends 

According to the BARC report, GEC, Movies and Sports genres together comprise 95 per cent of the HD channel viewership pie, of which GECs dominate a majority share. This can likely be attributed to the supply of HD channels, which is also concentrated within these 3 genres. 

While the GEC genre enjoys the largest share of impressions within both HD & SD channels, it has a substantially higher share in HD viewership, as 31 out of 83 (37 per cent) HD GEC channels contribute 62 per cent to the viewership pie. The HD viewership of GECs is fuelled entirely by their core content – viz. Serials. 

The channel share for Movies is 24 per cent and for Sports, it is 14 per cent. Among Sports channels, HD emerges as the preferred mode of viewing for Cricket and marginally higher for Soccer. These are high involvement sports, where the viewers may be seeking a quality viewing experience. The launch of a few sports HD channels earlier this year, may also have contributed to this growth. 

Looking at the share of Impressions by Genre on SD and HD channels, Sports & Lifestyle genres show a relatively higher propensity for viewing on HD channel as opposed to SD. The sports genre & lifestyle genre is also seen to be performing substantially better on HD in terms of relative ranking. 

Conversely, News, Kids & Music genres seem to be performing much better on the SD feed. Devotional, Teleshopping & Other genres only have SD feeds at present.