Movies, Fiction, talk shows dominate women's weekend TV viewing

Enough has been said and discussed about Indian women being the core audience of prime time and someone who drives the Indian TV viewership. BARC India has come out with its first Think newsletter that analyses how the Indian woman spends her day with respect to TV viewing hours.

The viewership pattern of women does not differ/ discriminate between Urban, Rural and Mega Cities.

There is some elasticity between News and Fiction Series. During 10:00 am-1:00 pm, share of News drops to almost half of the previous day part, whereas Fiction Series doubles up across Urban, Rural and Mega Cities on weekends.

Weekends are ideal for movies as women prefer watching movies during weekends more than weekdays. This substantiates that watching a movie with family on weekends is preferred more than watching a movie during noon time on weekdays.

The viewership pie for kids does not differ significantly between weekdays and weekends for Urban, Rural and Mega Cities.

Women prefer to watch Talk Shows during late prime time hours on weekends, whereas during weekdays there is hardly any movement observed during the same time band. Women may be the secondary viewers to their male partners/ family members.

Reality of weekend by time bands:

7:00-10:00 am: The viewership of Urban women is driven by share of News, whereas the viewership of Rural women is driven by the share of Fiction Series. Programmes themes of Kids and Movies are other differentiators between Urban and Rural women as both these themes are higher in viewership share in Rural India, compared to Urban India.

10:00 am-1:00 pm: As the day progresses, Indian women in Rural, Urban and Mega Cities double their viewership share of Fiction Series and drop almost half of their News Viewership share, compared to the previous day part. The major difference between a typical weekday and weekend is the viewership share of movies, which is almost double during weekend, compared to weekday across Urban, Rural and Mega Cities.

1:00-4:00 pm: During this day part, the share of Music and Kids goes down, whereas Movies stays at almost the same share as the previous day part for Urban, Rural and Mega Cities. However, the share of Movies during weekends is significantly higher than weekdays.

4:00-7:00 pm: This early evening day part witnesses the growth in Fiction Series and News, whereas share of Movies goes down. This may be due to the fact that during this time band the evening household chores start and longer duration content such as Movies is difficult uninterrupted viewership.

7:00-10:00 pm: During this day part, Fiction Series goes up significantly, whereas all other major content themes go down across Urban, Rural and Mega Cities.

10:00-11.30 pm: Analysing this late prime time band reveals that Non-Fiction Series, News and Talk Shows see a visible increase in their share across Urban, Rural and Mega Cities. On the other hand, Fiction Series see a drop in their viewership pie.