Partho Dasgupta: Screen change

Indian villages and small towns are big influencers in the broadcast universe

Rural India now has 17 per cent more TV owning households than urban India. This is just one of the interesting numbers from the Broadcast India study undertaken by BARC India – the study covered 300,000 households (HHs), more than 590 districts, approximately 4300 towns/villages and 66 per cent of the urban market. We also now know that the number of individuals watching television in India (780 million) is way ahead of the US (300 million), but this is still less than China (1.27 billion).

For brands and advertisers, these numbers open up a promising future. Not just in terms of the number of viewers, but also on the manner in which it reveals changing societal structures and consumer habits. The number of HHs owning a TV set grew by 19 per cent from 154 million in 2015 to 183 million in 2016. Among the many factors that influenced the change, migration, growing affluence levels and rural electrification have played a big part. 

The universe has expanded nationally, but some states have raced far ahead of the rest. While the TV penetration is well above 50 per cent in most of the states, Southern states like Karnataka, TN and Kerala have over 90 per cent penetration. UP, Bihar and Jharkhand have less than 50 per cent and MP and Rajasthan have between 50-75 per cent. Maharashtra, AP and Gujarat have between 80-90 per cent. The data reflects the migration patterns that have come to define the country; individuals in TV-owning HHs in states like UP have increased by just 4 per cent.  In Bihar and Jharkhand this number has dropped by 3 per cent. The reason: migration of people from these states.

Now let us see how affluence works. Apart from the direct connection between more money leading to more television sets, there is another underlying trend the data captures. Affluence led young couples to move out of joint families into their own homes, which brings about a change in the HH spending habits. The young have a higher propensity to spend and buying new consumer durables is one of their first priorities. For brands, information such as this one is an invaluable piece of the consumer puzzle. 

Affluence has led to an increase in the number of TV owning homes. Sixteen years ago, one-third of HHs had TVs. Today close to two-thirds own TV sets. The increasing number of households with TV sets are in NCCS B and C. This implies that the middle-class consumer pie is growing larger. Small towns and rural markets becoming key drivers of growth are encouraging for both advertisers and broadcasters. Totally, they own as much 78 per cent of the TV sets in India today and there still is room for growth. This does not mean that urban India is a saturated market, so there is a scope for growth across the country.

The survey also records the rise of digitisation in the broadcast world. Direct-to-Home (DTH) has taken a 35 per cent market share, while digital cable is at 23 per cent, analog cable still stands at 40 per cent while terrestrial has significantly reduced to just 2 per cent of the market. After the release of the BI universe data, our systems have further seen viewership increase by 18 per cent in week 8 which is a good sign for the TV industry. Love for entertainment and lifestyle changes are increasing viewership numbers. 

To conclude, progressing digitisation of TV households and an affluent middle class will keep durables’ consumption growing in small towns and remote areas. And as their choices are better reflected in data measurement systems, it will bring about many big changes in the way we design our content and communication processes.

NCCS is the new consumer classification system indicating the socio-economic status of households. NCCS A refers to the most prosperous households while NCCS D/E refers to the least prosperous