Average time spent watching TV more on weekends than weekdays: BARC report

The October-December is the strongest quarter of the year with respect to TV viewership, however, this quarter witnessed the least growth of 1% in 2017 over the same quarter in 2016

The Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) recently released a report on the impact of seasons and other external factors on viewership. For the purpose of this analysis, the agency has considered the 15 years and above segment as the target group (TG) since the kids TG has not been considered to maintain consistency in analysis.  

Quarterly trends

The April-June quarter is traditionally the least performing quarter, as the viewership is seen to dip during this period. This could be because of summer vacations in schools and colleges combined with a possible increase in power cuts and load shedding in the summer.

Viewership starts picking up in July-September quarter. The quarter witnesses a growth of 5 per cent in overall TV viewership from 2016 to 2017. This is the highest viewership growth across the four quarters and may be an ideal time to hook viewers returning to television after a short hiatus, by debuting new content and programmes.

The October-December is the strongest quarter of the year with respect to TV viewership. However, this quarter witnessed the least growth of 1 per cent in 2017 over the same quarter in 2016. A lot of special, festive programming occurs in this quarter in lieu of Diwali, Christmas, New Year, and hence viewership may be maxed out in this season.

Weekdays versus Weekend viewership trends

The average time spent watching TV spikes over the weekends, throughout the year, increasing from around 3 hours 30 minutes during weekdays to around 3 hours and 47 minutes over the weekends.

Holidays that fall mid-week typically witness better TV viewership than those that fall on a long weekend i.e. Monday or a Friday. This is attributed to the fact that people could take a small vacation over a long weekend, causing less spike in TV viewership than a mid-week holiday.

Temperature and viewership

Mapped with the average daily temperature, it is revealed that temperature and viewership have an inverse relationship. This follows the quarterly trends in TV viewership since the quarters with the lowest viewership have spring or summer seasons.