The Hindu Business Line : News channels draw more eyeballs on Budget day

New Delhi, July 8 Audiences preferred to watch the Finance Minister’s Budget presentation on general news channels over business news ones, according to data from the TV audience rating agency, aMap.

The business news genre saw a nine per cent drop in ratings in the six metros, but channels such as NDTV 24X7 and CNN IBN saw a three- and four-fold increase, respectively, in ratings between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Monday from the average during the period of the last four Mondays.

This is in contrast to the Budget presentation of 2008, when ratings of business channels had doubled.

Ms Punitha Arumugam, CEO, Madison Media, compares it with the performance of big ticket Hindi movies that always get better ratings on general entertainment channels, than when played on movie channels.

CNBC TV 18 and CNN-IBN had been ‘simulcasting’ the last few Budgets. This year, while also using the popular anchors from its group’s business channel, CNN IBN decided to delink coverage. “While the Budget has always been treated as a business event for corporates and the market, we have been working to expand the number of stakeholders and look at how the aam admi is affected,” says Mr Radhakrishnan Nair, Executive Editor, CNN-IBN. The programming leading up to the day, including a ‘common man’s wish list’ for the FM’ and a special series at campuses, had been planned since the general elections. It clearly helped TV ratings jump 178 per cent for the whole day compared with the average of the last four Mondays.

Times Now also combined brand strength with the new business channel from the Group, ET Now. It saw average gross rating points (GRPs) for a Monday rise by 32 per cent.

Possibly benefiting from the simultaneous Hindi translation Star News ran while the FM delivered his speech in English, the channel gained 263 per cent (from average viewership). The next big gainer, Zee News, was up only 50 per cent.

“Small innovations go a long way in adding credibility and viewership. News is one such segment where you build a brand on one day’s coverage but don’t necessarily encash it on the same day,” says Mr Ashok Venkatramani, CEO, Media Content and Communications Services, which runs the Star News channel.

For the whole day while the English news genre saw a 62 per cent increase and Hindi news was up 21 per cent, business news, which has additional channels competing for audience share this year, saw only an eight per cent increase from the average.

The markets expert CNBC TV 18, while gaining in the morning, lost nine per cent of its average Monday ratings even as NDTV Profit saw a 52 per cent increase in full day GRPs.

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