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Our Bureau

Chennai , May 25

EVEN as the Indian electorate stunned many by voting out the incumbent Government, the country's television viewers propped up news channels' viewership share to close to 10 per cent, a record for the industry, says a TAM Media Research study.

The share during the counting week was double that of the previous highest for news channels — 4.48 per cent recorded for the 9/11 week — and six times the share recorded during the counting week for the 1999 elections.

Mr Atul Phadnis, Vice-President, TAM Media Research, told Business Line that the mammoth increase in channel share for the 2004 elections over the previous one could be because of the big jump in the number of news channels. There were not more than two-three news channels, apart from a couple of international ones, during the 1994 elections; this time, there were 22. It means an increase in the number of players helped grow the market, he said.

Also, the fact that channel shares were much lower for incidents such as 9/11, the attacks on Parliament and the Akshardham temple and the Gujarat earthquake could also be because viewership during elections are by appointment, he added.

In fact, thanks to the electronic voting machines, action on the day of counting (May 13) was much like a "nice, neat three-hour movie," says Mr Phadnis. As against a share of 6.5 per cent on an average morning, the counting day witnessed a whopping 34 per cent share for news channels.

The average television viewer spent 70 per cent more time than usual watching news channels during the all-important week, only negligibly increasing his total time for television viewing. In the process, viewership of sports channels, regional channels and Hindi channels got hit, with the sports genre's viewership fall more acute (from 5.9 per cent to 1.5 per cent).The ad spends related to elections, according to TAM, worked out to Rs 175 crore, of which TV and press received Rs 137 crore. And Congress and BJP (plus their allies) spent Rs 93 crore of the Rs 137 crore.

The study also points out that during most of 2004 (leading up to the counting week), viewership share was on an average 5 per cent while the corresponding revenue share for news channels was 12-13 per cent. And the latter climbed to around 20 per cent three weeks before the viewership share rose up from 5-7 per cent to touch 9 per cent.

This shows the "advertisers were waiting for the viewers on the news channels," says TAM.

More Stories on : Marketing Research | Radio/TV | Politics

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