Looking back @2016: The year in Indian broadcasting

The broadcast sector India saw some major developments during 2016. Perhaps the most talked about development was Arnab Goswami quitting Times Network and announcing his own venture – Republic. The English news space also saw the launch of a new channel – WION – from the Zee stable. The Hindi GEC space saw a spate of supernatural-based shows being launched, especially after the success of ‘Naagin’. Major channel networks further strengthened their regional presence by launching HD feeds of their channels. 

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has given licences to a total of 170 channels between June 2014 and December 2016. Of these, 25 licences have been given to News channels and 145 licences have been given to non-news channels. 

MIB has also simplified the annual renewal process for existing TV channels as part of its ‘Ease of Doing Business’ plan. Broadcasters who have been given the permission for Uplinking or Downlinking can continue their operations by simply paying the annual permission fee up to 60 days before the due date, which by itself will be treated as permission for continuation of the channel for a further period of one year. 

Digitisation of cable TV is all set to bring the entire country under Digital Addressable System (DAS). The deadline for implementation of Phase III of digitisation was December 31, 2015 while for Phase IV, the deadline has been recently extended by the Ministry to March 31, 2017 from the earlier cutoff date of December 31, 2016. 

Hindi GECs 

The year saw some stiff battle for the top slot in BARC ratings from Star Plus, Colors and Zee TV. As of Week 51, Star Plus leads the Hindi GECs in Urban, while Rishtey tops the list in Rural, as per BARC ratings. 

Supernatural and fantasy-based shows saw a resurgence during the year, thanks to the tremendous success of ‘Naagin’ on Colors, Season 2 of ‘Naagin’ has also been witnessing good traction and has remained the most watched show on Hindi GECs in Rural+Urban. 

Long-running show ‘Balika Vadhu’ bid adieu to the small screen in 2016. Another long-running show, ‘Sasural Simar Ka’ is also set to end its run on TV after seeing some unlikely ‘supernatural’ twists to the story plot. 

Meanwhile, ‘Bigg Boss’ Season 10 continues with its share of controversies, fights, and evictions. In its latest season, some changes have been made in the show’s format and for the first time ‘commoners’ have also got a chance to be inmates of the Bigg Boss house.