BARC Report: Times Now, Aaj Tak lead news genre during April 18 and May 8

Overall, news channels gained viewership on the back of the Salman Khan trial and Nepal Earthquake coverage.

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), the recently launched television audience measurement metric system, has released a report analysing the viewership of news genre (Hindi and English language) during the two big events - the verdict on Salman Khan's hit-and-run case and the earthquake that shook Nepal and some parts of India.

The new metric system, with the help of its BMW software, has presented an in-depth analysis of the viewership of the genre from April 18 and May 8 (data for week 16, 17, 18), in terms of ratings in thousands, coverage in thousands and reach.

According to BARC, "Like the Seismograph helps measure an earthquake, BARC India's BMW software helps analyse and gain rare insights on television audience viewership measurement and analytics in times of hell, distraught and celebration. All media has contributed to creating awareness and sensitivity around such shattering incidents, both natural and man-made."

Hindi News:

According to BARC, Aaj Tak has been the market leader for all three weeks, followed closely by ABP News , among the top eight Hindi news channels.

For the record, Rat'000 is the number of target households in 000s where an "event" was on, averaged across minutes, also known as TVT. Cov'000 is the number of target households ('000s) in the universe where at least one of the events in a set of events was on, also known as Cume Reach in 000s.

It was also observed that ratings of Hindi news channels peaked on April 25 (Nepal Earthquake), the ripple effect was observed for the next three days. On May 6, the spike in viewership was due to news surrounding Salman Khan.

In terms of the time in the day, news channels, as can be seen in the graph below, started peaking around 11:45 am on April 25 (Nepal Earthquake).

ABP News (graph below) took over the No.1 position with the Salman Khan story on May 6.

April 25 Earthquake News: Increased viewership can be seen from Delhi, Gujarat for all Hindi news channels.

The Teleview Report of BARC (seen under): Channels breaking news on Nepal Earthquake: ABP News at 11:44:53, Aaj Tak at 11:44:54, India TV at 11:45:50 and Zee News at 11:46:30

The Reach Grid on 25 April 25: Reach was maximum for Aaj Tak, followed by ABP news. (Reach is number of target households in per cent or '000s where the event was on for at least one minute. Channel allocation based on attribution rules).

May 6 and May 8 - Salman Khan news - interesting observation to take note of is the rat for ABP News was highest on May 6, whereas Aaj Tak gained on May 8.

English News:

In all three weeks, Times Now remained the clear market leader with around 38 per cent channel share in the current week (week 18).

English news channels too witnessed a peak in ratings owing to the two aforementioned events. Though, unlike Hindi news, higher traction was seen on May 6 on English news channels.

Clearly, English news channels got less traction as compared to Hindi news channels on April 25 for the Nepal Earthquake news.

Viewership of English news channels peaked post 4 pm on May 6, with different peaks for different channels as seen under:

The Teleview Report (below): On April 25, CNN IBN broke the news at 11:45:52 am followed by Times Now at 11:46:40 am, NDTV 24x7 at 11:46:43 am and Headlines Today at 11:48:43 am.

The Rat 000s Grid: Times Now got highest traction on April 25 and May 8. It was higher for CNN IBN on May 6.