Regional TV channels see viewership growth

Whereas genres like Hindi movies, English leisure and infotainment proceed to lose share, and Hindi GECs (basic leisure channels) are limping again, channels in Marathi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu have seen their viewership improve and settle at ranges 15% greater than pre-covid numbers, mentioned two senior media consumers at promoting companies.

This can be as a result of gradual transition of regional viewers to OTT (over-the-top) streaming platforms and the robust fan base that exhibits and stars on regional language leisure channels command.

Mint had earlier reported that even common actuality TV exhibits in Hindi have seen their viewership rankings decline by 15-20% as audiences’ tastes have modified. The transition to internet content material has additionally been sooner for Hindi-language markets.

“The 4 southern markets proceed to keep up viewership share of their respective languages, throughout 2019 to 2021. Marathi and Bangla witnessed a churn in 2020, nonetheless the pattern reversed in 2021 with the return of authentic language content material coming, changing the Hindi content material being aired through the covid impacted interval,” Sidharth Parashar, president, investments and pricing at media company GroupM India mentioned.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, head, Hindi mass leisure and children TV community at Viacom18 additionally cited Marathi, Tamil and Kannada as languages that had seen development whereas Kailashnath Adhikari, managing director, Governance Now mentioned “individuals have affinity for native language content material, which is why regional channels have registered the best development each when it comes to viewership and promoting,” citing Bhojpuri as a serious driver.

Governance Now could be a fortnightly journal by media and leisure conglomerate Sri Adhikari Brothers that owns channels like Mastiii, Maiboli, Dabangg and others.

In an earlier interview with Mint, Mansi Datta, chief consumer officer and head, north and east, Wavemaker India had mentioned regional is a barely safer area for broadcasters as content material on OTT in these languages continues to be arising and has not reached the identical ranges as linear tv. Moreover audiences watching programming in these languages have higher affinity and loyalty in the direction of tv and migration to OTT will take time, a danger that’s far greater for Hindi content material.

Area of interest tv genres resembling English leisure and infotainment are completely off the charts, mentioned Adhikari. “Solely mainstream Hindi and regional channels will survive. Not everyone seems to be blessed with excessive web penetration or bandwidth connectivity. Thus, for some components of India, or what could also be termed as Bharat, TV continues to be probably the most most well-liked possibility for leisure,” Adhikari mentioned.

To drive viewership, in the meantime, Hindi GECs are 2022 because the yr of platform-agnostic programming the place new originals could possibly be watched both on linear tv or on streaming providers later, having recognised that on-line viewing is a behavior that’s right here to remain.

“We’re an ‘AND’ market now the place tv and OTT will co-exist and as broadcasters, we wish to be agnostic of display and gadget,” mentioned Viacom18’s Jaipuria that’s strengthening its choices within the late primetime slot with round 4 new Hindi exhibits by February.

The tip of the present season of Bigg Boss will make means for Hunarbaaz, a actuality sequence with Karan Johar, Parineeti Chopra and Mithun Chakraborty as judges. Tv continues to play a pivotal function in bringing households collectively however studying to cater to viewers throughout media helps fight the direct problem of cord-cutting, Jaipuria mentioned, including that “individuals can at all times watch Bigg Boss on VOOT in the event that they don’t watch it on TV.”

To make sure, TV promoting additionally recovered by August or September this yr with conventional classes now having to cope with new entrants for area. Based on a current report by tv monitoring company BARC (Broadcast Viewers Analysis Council), tv advert volumes stood at 156 million seconds in November, 3% greater than November 2020 and 31% greater than November 2019.

“Tv promoting expenditure has recovered very strongly in 2021 over 2020. This development was broad based mostly as a number of classes like BFSI (banking, monetary providers and insurance coverage), client durables, e-commerce, FMCG, actual property and providers grew over the 20% mark. The contribution of new-age classes resembling crypto, fintech, insure-tech, edu-tech, food-tech, OTT and numerous D2C manufacturers can also be an enormous issue,” mentioned Parashar who estimated a double-digit development in TV adex in 2021 in comparison with 2019. Success News