Opportunity or challenge? How brands are riding the news wave in India

In 2017, news genre recorded 15% growth in the number of channels, according to BARC

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is not only a newsmaker, but he also loves promoting products of Patanjali Ayurved, the company he co-founded with Acharya Balkrishna, aggressively on news channels. Virtually every other news and current affairs programme on Hindi news channels today is sponsored by Patanjali. But while the ayurveda major loves riding on news, it is not the only company to be doing so. Firms across the board from banking and financial services to mobile handsets, telecom, steel, auto, cement and educational institutes among others are vying for the attention of the news viewer.

The reason is the sheer growth that the news genre has seen in the last one year. A study by the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) shows that the news genre has grown 15 per cent in terms of number of channels between 2016 and 2017. As things stand now, this genre contributes eight per cent to total television viewership in the country, coming in third after general entertainment and movies respectively.

But while the news channel base in India has grown with as many as 21 channels added in a year, this has also brought considerable variation in viewership. BARC’s study shows that markets such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi have a high preference for news versus other states in the country. Yet, these markets are unable to pull up the overall viewership share of the northern region vis-a-vis other zones. The southern markets cumulatively, according to BARC, deliver higher viewership share at 36 per cent, followed by the north at 26 per cent, the west at 23 per cent and the east at 15 per cent. 
 

Anita Nayyar, chief executive officer, India & South Asia, Havas Media Group, says that news is actually a very efficient genre to reach people provided the finer attributes of every market are taken into account. “If market nuances are considered appropriately, then one can plan accordingly on how to invest on this genre. And it can actually be a very efficient medium to deliver audiences,” she says.

If a further analysis of the news viewership is done then BARC says that while the audience remains largely male-skewed, 22 years and above, yet kids’ viewership of news channels is higher when compared to older audiences. “This can be attributed to two factors,” BARC says. “Firstly, it may be due to co-viewing, as a large percentage of TV-owning homes are single-TV households. Secondly, it may reflect the composition of the overall universe. This is because kids are one of the largest age-groups in the TV-viewing population. They have high absolute numbers,” it adds. 

The southern markets cumulatively, according to BARC, deliver higher viewership share at 36 per cent, followed by the north at 26 per cent, the west at 23 per cent and the east at 15 per cent

The numbers also reinforce something that advertisers have long known, that news is a dynamic and event-driven genre. In 2017, for instance, politically significant, scheduled events, such as State election results have consistently led to spikes in news viewership as have events such as demonetisation, demise of Jayalalitha, the surgical strike operation and so on.

What does this mean for brands then? Media agency heads responsible for buying advertising spots across channels are of the view that variation in news viewership is not uncommon. “We invest a substantial portion of (advertiser) money on news channels. Fluctuation in news viewership is not new because it is driven largely by events. It is therefore prone to spikes when there is a big developing story or when there are events that draw high viewer interest. Also, preference for news varies across regions. One has therefore to keep all these factors in mind when buying on news,” Harish Shriyan, chief executive officer, Omnicom Media Group India, says.

Shashi Sinha, chief executive officer, IPG Mediabrands India, says, that media planners are used to fluctuations on news and that there are two aspects to news: appointment viewing and viewership driven by incidents. “Advertisers therefore typically look at an average (in terms of viewership) when investing on news,” he adds.