Seventy-four weeks of a concerted effort to cover up the emergence of a new leader in the Hindi news genre have come to a naught. TV9 Bharatvarsh has become the country’s most watched national Hindi news channel disrupting the old order dominated by legacy channels.
The BARC data for television news channels released today — after a long, inexplicable shutdown — put TV9 Bharatvarsh on top of the pile of national Hindi news channels with a jaw-dropping 16.8 % market share.
Not just that. TV9 Network which runs five other language channels — Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali – retained its rank as the country’s biggest television news network. With three of its channels being #1 and all others in leadership positions, the Network notched up a massive 292 million AMA (average minute audience). That is a clear 25 percent lead over the nearest competitor, Zee Network with 13 channels.
However, history has been created in the Hindi news genre. TV9 Bharatvarsh displaced Aaj Tak which came in second with a 14.8% market share for Week 10 (March 5 to 11, 2022 / four-week rolling average, NCCS, 15+, 0600-2400 hours). The scale of this unprecedented disruption in the Hindi television news genre is best appreciated by juxtaposing two undeniable facts: One, Aaj Tak has been the leader of the genre from its inception more than 20 years ago. Two, TV9 Bharatvarsh is three weeks short of what will be just its third birthday (March 31).
TV9 Bharatvarsh’s coverage of landmark news events — such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Covid pandemic and the Uttar Pradesh election to name just three — marked by its editorial prowess, newsroom innovation, impeccable packaging and unrivalled ground reportage, saw the channel rise sharply up the ratings ladder. This rise has been consistent over the last two years.
Celebrating this unprecedented success of TV9 Bharatvarsh and TV9 News Network, Barun Das, CEO, the BARC ratings only revealed what some people wanted to hide. “We always knew that we were destined to be the leader. I am happy that the ratings released today have offered empirical evidence of our leadership. I am amused that the only business strategy the legacy channels had to stop the rise of TV9 Bharatvarsh was to stop the ratings itself. And glad that the interest and the verdict of the viewers has finally prevailed.”
Echoing Barun’s sentiment, BV Rao, Group Editor, said: “It is clear today that you cannot stop a leader by stopping BARC ratings.”
Expressing deep satisfaction over the leadership status, Hemant Sharma, News Director, TV9 Bharatvrash said, “This is the victory of solid credible journalism. This is the victory of conviction in the newsroom capability.”
Sant Prasad Rai, Managing Editor and the architect of the content innovations at TV9 Bharatvarsh, said, “We owe a sense of gratitude to our viewers. We believe the viewer deserves the best. We don’t want to ever compromise on our commitment and responsibility to the viewer. We have established our editorial leadership in each and every genre in the news space.”
Talking about the network leadership status, Barun said, “It gives us immense pleasure to consistently remain the largest news network of the largest democracy of the world. When success is attained by design, it can be replicated. Our all-round supremacy at the Network level proves that.”