What India watches

They are young, aspirational, have rising incomes, still love their regional films but are also increasing their time spent watching English news as well as English entertainment. They are early to bed and early to rise. In the universe of television, specially measuring and gathering data on what they watch - they can no longer be dismissed as 'rural'. As India moves to complete digitisation, what semi-urban and rural India are watching may change the game forever. Almost all the numbers we have so far point to a new roadmap, one which is seeing most broadcasters changing their game plan as well.

Take for example some simple data, which shows us higher ratings in the rural areas such as Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana/AP, Rajasthan, UP/UK, Bihar and Odisha which contribute more than 50 per cent of viewership to their respective states. While farming needs ensure an early morning for rural India, how this translates for us is, we get a different time band of peaks in ratings as compared to urban India.

Being early risers, the time between 5.30-7.30 a.m. is when rural India watches most of its TV and again, early to bed, means they begin as early as 6.30 pm and wrap by mostly 10:30 pm. How does this compare to the cities? Everything shifts by an hour when we look at urban India peak ratings. Data also shows that the average time spent watching TV is significantly less in rural areas, with an average of 2 hours, 43 minutes as compared to 3 hours, 24 minutes for urban areas. Besides the need to wake up early for farming, it is the lack of infrastructure, in terms of power that takes its toll as well. Power cuts could be a huge reason for the 40 per cent penetration in the rural area. Of course between the census of 2001 and 2011, there has been a 75 per cent growth in rural TV numbers but a better infrastructure in terms of power may have or led to a faster growth.

In case of there being any doubt as to the rural spending power, consider this: two in every five individuals in the rural area come from the New Consumer Classification System (NCCS) AB, which is the highest segment in terms of propensity to consume. Of the total 122 million, 30 minute gross impressions (gross impressions: sum product of audiences who have watched a particular programme weighted to the time spent on it) of English movies, rural India is adding 45 million 30 minute gross impressions. Of course they love their regional movies too, be it Telugu, Kannada or Tamil. The sports genre is a big hit in rural areas with 48 per cent of eyeballs logging in from outside of urban centres. And with sports like Kabbadi gaining traction, this percentage is bound to grow further.

One of the surprises is in the music and youth genres, where 44 per cent of viewership comes from the rural population. The popularity of these two genres is in keeping with our data showing the younger age profile of the rural viewer and how much in step they are with their city cousins. The numbers may not be big yet, but an increasing number is watching English Lifestyle genres. This tells us that they are drawn towards the language out of a desire to pick it up and learn its nuances. And by listening to English being spoken the way they think it should be, they hope to familiarise themselves with its spoken form.

A few decades ago, the medium that played this role was the English language newspaper. The new medium now seems to be television, and the viewership pattern showcases its growing power.

Partho Dasgupta
CEO, The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC)

The author can be reached on twitter @parthodasgupta