The Hindu Business Line : Viewership for news channels growing

COMPETITION has augured well for news channels. Last year, a host of news channels had entered into the television space, and a look at the numbers indicates that the genre has performed well.

According to data from TAM India for the last five months, the share of Hindi news channels has consistently been on the rise. For instance, for the week ending November 15, 2003 the share of news channels was 2.92 per cent, which grew to 5.19 per cent during the week ended March 20, 2004.

"In the last one year, the viewership of the news channels has grown by 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent," said Mr G. Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, TV Today.

The advertising pie also grew from about Rs 200 crore to Rs 375 crore in a year's time. However, there was fierce competition among the various players in the Hindi news segment. Aaj Tak held on to the No 1 slot, but to occupy the second slot, there was a fight between the Prannoy Roy-promoted NDTV India, Star News and DD News.

While DD News started off with a bang due to higher reach, NDTV India and Star News have remained in competition by innovating. The Star News President, Ms Ravina Raj Kohli, said that the channel has been a "people's channel".

However, the English news channel has not managed to grow by leaps and bounds. Its share hovers around 0.3 per cent of all channels available in cable and satellite homes with NDTV 24x7 leading the pack followed by business news channel, CNBC.

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