Record 20.3 cr people watch PM address on lockdown-2: BARC

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address extending the lockdown by 19 days was watched by a record 203 million across the country on television, exceeding previous records held by him, the BARC said on Thursday.

Even though a record number of people have downloaded the contact tracing Aarogya Setu app, only a tenth of those are using the app, market research agency AC Nielsen said.

Modi has had four telecasts to the nation since the pandemic began in India and the addresses have given calls including the one-day 'Janta' curfew, declaration of the lockdown, cheering the medical fraternity by banging plates and lighting lamps.

The previous record on viewership was 193 million for the second address when he declared the 21-day lockdown.

The fourth address on Tuesday, where Modi extended the lockdown by 19-days in a 25-minute speech, was telecast by 199 broadcasters and generated nearly 4 billion viewing minutes, which is also a record, Broadcast Audience Research Council's chief executive Sunil Lulla told reporters.

The council reported that the overall TV consumption in the week to April 12 has gone up 38 per cent when compared to the pre-COVID period.

Lulla hinted that it is primarily driven by national broadcaster Doordarshan, which has outsmarted the private sector channels by launching its classic shows like Ramayan and Mahabharat and added that the general entertainment channels as a category grew only because of DD.

However, on the flip side, this growth in the number of eyeballs has been accompanied by a downfall in advertising and the data for the reporting week said the overall time had decreased by 26 per cent.

Lulla attributed the fall to the lockdown, pointing out that with no consumption happening or deemed to happen till May 3, advertisers are not forthcoming.

Meanwhile, on the same call, market researcher AC Nielsen, which studies trends on select universe of Android phones, said that despite breaching records on downloads, the state-pushed Aarogya Setu app is being used by only 10 per cent people.

Nielsen's Dolly Jha said that smartphone users continue to be very concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic, and added that over 40 per cent searches on Google were on topics related to the virus.

Apart from that 8 per cent of people are frequently visiting websites dedicated for the pandemic, with an increased interest being shown by males, she said.