Many moods of the nation are reflected in television viewership

As people tune in to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurl the tri-colour on our 70th Independence Day, the annual event that unfailingly records massive viewership numbers, they will be sending out the signal that some habits do not change. Watching the Prime Minister’s address on August 15 is among the few rituals that Indian viewers have steadfastly held on to, in the midst of tumultuous changes that have overtaken the broadcasting world. Over the past year and more, we have seen a few shifts in viewer behaviour; sports viewership is no longer limited to cricket, niche channels are drawing in bigger numbers and the number of channels per household has shot up dramatically.

 
The television set has for long been one of the biggest binding agents for Indian families; an inseparable part of our lives for decades. Be it that box sitting in the corner of a home, or the flat panel hanging on the walls of another. A constant in our lives, and yet part of the enormous changes that have swept through India over last couple of decades, TV has been through its own revolution cycle in the country.
 
From black-and-white to colour, from a single-channel DD to the 24x7, 600+ channels of today, from SD to HD and beyond. From the ‘idiot box’ to the era of ‘smart TVs’, television has seen it all. And it has been more than a bystander; I would say that TV has also been a catalyst for change. And now, with digitisation completed in almost all parts of India, homes across the country are witnessing another freedom–the freedom of choice of content.

 

I believe that 1992 was the cusp year when privatisation of TV broadcasting saw an explosion of channels and the entry of many global players like STAR and homegrown brands like ZEE. The boom was further fuelled by mushrooming of regional players.
 
Cut to today, when thanks to DAS  (digital addressable systems) we have over 600-odd channels at our fingertips, 1992 seems pretty tame in comparison. In terms of actual viewing, the number of channels viewed per week at the household level has gone up from 40 to 70.

In the Hindi General Entertainment Channels (GEC) space there has been a growth of almost 50 per cent in the number of channels viewed and time spent on viewing.

 
One feature that has not changed, however, is that India remains a largely single-TV household market and TV-viewing continues to be the favourite family pass-time. But within that, we are witnessing significant changes in TV viewing preferences – driven by growing economic prosperity and rising aspirations. One clear indicator of that is the proliferation of High Definition (HD) channels, which number over 80 today. These channels are clocking up viewership from across urban and rural India, especially those that beam sports content.
 
In fact, the sports genre has seen big-time changes in recent times. While cricket remains a religion, broadcasters are also placing their faith in other sports like kabaddi, wrestling, football, tennis, and badminton. The rise of sports leagues like Pro Kabaddi League, (PKL) Indian Super League, (ISL) Hockey India League (HIL) is indicative of that trend. And BARC India data further corroborates the growing fan base of sports outside of cricket, with their broadcasts contributing to as much as 20 per cent to total sports viewership. What is also interesting is the 40-45 per cent contribution of female viewership to this genre, and the fact that fan-base cuts across the socio-economic spectrum.

 
These are very healthy trends, which should spur further investments in the genre, which in turn could be the next engine for growth of TV in India. We do have a long way to go down that path however: In the US, the sports genre accounts for around 37 per cent of the total TV ad spends. In India, that figure currently hovers around 8-10 per cent mark.
 
While the sports category has seen a lot of activity during the year, films on TV continue to retain their evergreen status with viewers, highlighting our continued love for the silver screen and its stars. But here too, the battle for eyeballs is getting brutal as the viewers are presented with a  wider range of content. So while a Salman Khan or Rajinikanth film premiere on TV guarantees family viewing, the young are also checking out latest Hollywood premieres and current seasons of American television series like Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

 
The big story in this journey, however, has been the growth of ‘niche channels’. Over the last two years, viewership of the lifestyle genre has more than doubled. Who would have thought that we would have channels devoted exclusively to cooking, travel, wildlife, nature, science and music, and that they would acquire dedicated audiences? Who could have predicted that a show like Masterchef Australia would develop a cult following? And guess where these viewers of nature, cookery, travel et al are from? Not just from the metros. When we look at the numbers, it seems as if rural India is racing fast to catch up with their urban cousins–as is also evident from the higher growth in rural viewership (155 per cent) as compared to urban (118 per cent).

 
So, on this Independence Day, sit back, flip the remote and enjoy the freedom of choice.