Total TV viewership records 1.08 tr viewing minutes in Week 33 as Originals return to TV

Total TV viewership has shown consistent growth in the last 12 weeks, with a 22 per cent growth over pre-COVID viewing. In Week 33, total TV viewership recorded 1.08 trillion viewing minutes. Current daily average reach at 600 million is 7 per cent higher than pre-COVID; daily time spent is also 13 per cent higher than the pre-COVID period. This was revealed in the 11^th edition of BARC Nielsen report on TV and smartphone content consumption during the crisis. This edition does a deep dive into content and advertising consumption as ‘Originals’ return to TV.

As per the report, growth in the current week vis-a-vis the pre-COVID period is seen across both Primetime (3%) and Non Primetime (44%) and also across HSM and South markets.

On TV, share of different genres is more or less back to pre-COVID levels, with Original programmimg bringing back the GEC genre both in HSM and South markets. News and Movies have also seen growth in Primetime.

The Independence Day event this year garnered 4.6 billion viewing minutes – the highest viewership in the last 2 years – also higher than all the previous addresses by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the COVID-19 period.

The Live telecast of Ayodhya Bhoomi Pujan ceremony garnered 7.3 billion viewing minutes.

Meanwhile, overall smartphone usage is slightly lower than the pre-COVID levels – the drop in the recent weeks is on account of time on banned Chinese apps getting reduced.

On smartphones, revival seen in shopping, which has surpassed the pre-COVID levels in recent weeks. Education and Video Conferencing continue to grow – with almost 1 in 5 people accessing them.

Overall time spent on Video Streaming has returned to the pre-COVID levels. On the content viewed on smartphones, Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer ‘Dil Bechara’ has topped the Movie Charts in Week 1 of release, followed by action thriller ‘Khuda Hafiz’. ‘Mastram’ continues to top the Original series charts, followed by ‘Bandish Bandits’, ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Aarya’. Share of time spent on syndicated series on OTT has also seen an increase as new programming resumes.

Ad volumes in the Unlock period have surpassed the pre-COVID volumes by ~12 per cent, even as the Top 10 Advertiser inventory has gone up by 34 per cent in the Unlock period, compared to the pre-COVID period.