Crisis Consumption: An Insights Series into TV, Smartphone & Audiences (Edition 2)

FOCUS

This document – Crisis Consumption: An Insights Series into TV, Smartphone & Landscape (Edition 2) – is a slide deck prepared by the Broadcast Audience Research Council, India (BARC; an association of broadcasters, advertisers, and advertising and media agencies) and Nielsen (a data analytics company with headquarters in the USA). It presents data on the impact of the Covid-19 led ‘disruption’ – which started impacting India in the middle of March, 2020 – on television ‘consumption’ and smartphone usage. The sources of this data and methods of collection are not mentioned.

This second edition of the series was released on April 2, 2020. Its 45 slides present advertising trends since the Covid-19 ‘disruption’ and recommendations for advertisers, TV channels and digital services.

It considers January as the ‘pre Covid-19 period’ – specifically, January 11 to 31, 2020, for the analysis of TV behaviour, and January 13 to February 2, 2020, for smartphone behaviour.

The Covid-19 ‘disruption period’, in these slides, is March 14 to March 20 (Week 1) and March 21 to 27 (Week 2) for TV behaviour, and for smartphone behaviour it is March 16 to March 22 (Week 1) and March 21 to 27 (Week 2).

“Being home-bound is leading to increase in TV engagement across countries globally,” a slide notes.

The first edition was released on March 27, 2020. It depicts changes in the viewing of Hindi TV channels, changes TV viewing across genres and languages, and time spent on e-retail platforms since the Covid-19 period began.  Both editions of the BARC-Nielsen Insights series mention global TV viewing statistics and ‘The India Landscape’ of TV and smartphone behaviour.

    FACTOIDS

  1. The average number of daily TV viewers grew by 62 million between the pre Covid-19 period and March 21 to 27, 2020.

  2. Between the pre Covid-19 period and March 21 to 27, 2020, TV viewership in India increased by 37 per cent. The highest increase – 56 per cent – was recorded in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab, while Karnataka recorded the lowest increase at 27 per cent.

  3. There was a 71 per cent increase in the ‘non-prime time’ TV viewership between the pre Covid-19 period and March 21 to 27, 2020.

  4. Across all states, there was a 41 per cent increase in TV viewership among males, and a 33 per cent increase among females between the pre Covid-19 period and March 21 to 27, 2020, across all states. The TV viewership of those between 2 and 14 years increased by 47 per cent in this period.

  5. The increase in TV viewership between January and March across all states was 298 per cent for news, 180 per cent for business news, 63 per cent for ‘infotainment’ and 56 per cent for movies. “News and movies clocked an all-time high growth” – states the slide deck.

  6. DD National’s Ramayana recorded the highest number of viewers (the slides don’t give the numbers though) among all Hindi TV serials in among “in Week 13 since the year began.”

  7. Between January and March, the average amount of time spent per user on smartphones increased by nearly three hours a week per user – it was 23.6 hours in the pre Covid-19 period, and 26.4 hours between March 20 and 27, 2020.

  8. The time spent on smartphones per user increased by 12 per cent for those between 15 and 24 years, nine per cent for those between 25 and 34 years, and 18 per cent for those between 35 and 44 years – between the pre Covid-19 period and March 20 to 27, 2020.

  9. As compared to the pre Covid-19 period, call time increased only by 5 per cent in March 20 to 27, 2020. There was a 42 per cent increase in ‘social networking’ in this period.

  10. E-commerce activities saw an acute decline between the pre Covid-19 period and during March 20 to 27, 2020 – time spent on digital platforms for travel declined by 53 per cent and food ordering declined by 41 per cent.

  11. Users spent 45 per cent more time on news apps between the pre Covid-19 period and March 20 to 27, 2020.

  12. There was a 26 per cent increase in time spent on gaming apps on smartphones between the pre Covid-19 period and March 20 to 27 – and users between 15 to 24 years increased time spent on gaming by 34 per cent during this time.


    Focus and Factoids by Kalyani Vartak.


    PARI Library's health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.

AUTHOR

BARC India and Nielsen, USA

COPYRIGHT

BARC India and Nielsen, USA

PUBLICATION DATE

02 Apr, 2020

TAGS

#tv-viewership #smartphone-usage #covid-19-impact #covid-19

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