Tamil news channels thrive despite fall in viewership amidst Chennai deluge

Tamil news channels outshone their English, Hindi peers garnering 9.6% market share as against 5% in the preceding weeks

Despite the deluge that brought Chennai to a standstill in the first week of December, the share of Tamil news channels doubled, even as the total TV consumption in the region declined by 81%. According to TAM Media Research’s data for TV viewership between November 29 and December 5 (Week 49 of 2015), while English and Hindi news channels showed flat growth curve in Chennai, Tamil news channels thrived.

Even in Tamil Nadu territories ex-Chennai, including in areas with population between 100, 000 to one million, viewership data showed similar trends. As a result, amongst the genres, Tamil news genre witnessed the maximum hike in Chennai by holding a share of 9.6% as against 5% share in the previous weeks. (See chart)

The flood situation in the city seemed to have kept viewers glued to news channels wherever consumption was not hindered due to power outage. Total TV consumption in the market dropped from an average 718 GRPs to 136 GRPs in terms of its average daily TV consumption with average weekly reach dropping from 86.6% to 52.45% in week 49’15. The decline in viewership in Chennai was due to a massive power outage.

As a result, Tamil general entertainment channels saw share of viewership decrease from average 50.7% between week 45 and 48 to 46.7% in week 49 in Chennai. Other genres like Tamil music and Tamil movies also lost market share. The same trend was seen in market outside Chennai, throughout the state. (See chart)

Tamil Nadu has around six actively viewed Tamil news channels like the Sun Group’s Sun News, the Dina Thanthi’s Thanthi TV, M Karunanidhi-owned Seithigal, Captain News, New Gen Media Corporation’s Puthiya Thalaimurai TV and Lotus news.

Earlier in November during the festive week of Diwali, English and Hindi news channels had received a similar boost in ratings thanks to three major events. English news channels saw a jump of 17% while Hindi news channels saw a spike of 44% during the week as compared to the last week. November 8 started the festive week with the Bihar poll results which gave news channels a huge spike in viewership. The momentum was maintained by coverage on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK and was topped by the coverage on the multiple attacks in Paris on Friday night.

According to S-Group, the data analytics arm of TAM Media, these three stories together were given 54% coverage in the Hindi news genre and 63% coverage in the English News genre. Report on Diwali celebrations was also given decent coverage and received average Viewership.

“Amongst the three stories, story covering blasts in Paris received higher viewership contribution from higher SECs- A/B, whereas Modi's visit to the UK had higher skewness from SEC D/E. Also, it was the news on Paris that had the maximum skew from male viewers,” the S-Group analysis revealed.