Budget brings cheer to news channels, viewership up 44%

Many might not agree that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee succeeded in making the aam aadmi happy with his Budget, but he certainly brought cheer to owners of news channels.

On Monday, the number of people watching Hindi and English news channels during Budget 2011 coverage was more than the daily average. According to data available with aMap, an overnight television audience monitoring agency, viewership for news increased by 44 per cent.

About 37 million viewers were glued to their television sets watching the finance minister deliver his Budget speech. The number of eyeballs registered on news channels on Budget day is 39 per cent more, compared to the average viewership recorded on other days. The viewership numbers gain significance in the context that 39 million viewers in India had watched the opening match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 between India and Bangladesh on February 19.

The aMap data also shows business news channels gained the most with the market share for channels like CNBC TV18, NDTV Profit, Bloomberg UTV and Times Now, increasing by 56 per cent.

According to aMap, this year’s viewership trends moved away from the usual — the television audience was no more restricted to the target group who watched the Budget every year, but it cut across sections of the society, creating huge interest among women.

aMap said the participation of women aged 15 years and above that were recorded on business news channels in cable and satellite homes, helped increase the channels’ market share by a whopping 62 per cent.

Average time spent per viewer on news channels on the day increased by 31 per cent.