Who watched what on Independence Day: Here's the breakdown of TV viewership

With all channels covering the event live, Hindi news genre on August 15 grew by 43

The Independence Day telecast of the celebrations that take place at the Red Fort every year has always attracted eyeballs, whether it is on public broadcaster Doordarshan or on the many news channels the country has. This year was no different, as the event was covered by more channels than ever and saw an increase in viewership on both the DD and private news channels. Here is the lowdown: 

• With all channels covering the event live, Hindi news genre on August 15 (Wednesday) grew by 43 per cent when compared to the previous four Wednesdays (Hindi Speaking Market, males and females above 15 years of age). English news genre on the day grew by 127 per cent (Male viewers above 22 years of age from NCCS AB) as compared to the previous four Wednesdays.

 

• For the 6:30-9:00 am time band, when the Independence Day celebration is aired live from the Red Fort, Hindi news genre grew 2.4 times as compared to the previous four Wednesdays for the same time-band. The genre grew from 3.7 million impressions to 9.1 million impressions.
  English news genre in the same time-band registered a 7.2X growth. 

 

• The number of channels covering the event grew from 147 in 2017 to 187 this year, and the telecast reached 120.7 million people this year, as compared to 109.2 million people last year. 

 

• The top five markets by viewership were Maharashtra/Goa, MP/Chhattisgarh, UP/Uttarakhand, Karnataka and AP/Telangana, in that order. 

Coverage: Also known as reach, it is the number of people who have sampled the event 
 

Impressions: The measure of viewership that refers to the number of people who saw the event, average across the duration of the telecast 
 

NCCS: New Customer Classification System 

 

Source: Broadcast Audience Research Council of India