BENGALURU: Amongst the twenty or so channels (about 10 domestic, rest international) that beam English News into India, Times Now lead the genre by far during for the first 18 weeks of 2017 (or a little more than two thirds of calendar year 2017) according to Broadcast Research Council of India (BARC) data. This paper is based on BARCData for Top 5 English News channels weekly lists for weeks 1 to 18 of  2017: All India (U+R) : NCCS AB : Males 22+ Individuals. BARC weeks 1 to 18 cover the period from Saturday, 31 December 2016 to Friday, 5 May 2017.

Combined weekly impressions (CWI) means the sum of all the weekly impressions of channel of all the weeks under consideration. It may be noted that the CWI of other channels that have not made it to top five English News channels list during the weeks under consideration could be higher, but have not been considered in this paper.

Of the six channels that made it to BARC’s top 5 lists in terms of weekly impressions,four were present in the lists during all the first 18 weeks of 2017. One channel – BBC World News made it to the top 5 English News channels list for 16 of the first eighteen weeks of 2017, while News X made it to the top 5 lists twice (weeks 11 and 12) during the first 18 weeks of 2017.

Times Now was ranked first during all the first 18 weeks of 2017 in terms of the combined sum of BARC’s weekly impressions in sums of thousands – (000s) Sums during all the first 18 weeks of 2017. Times Now had CWI of 13,412 (000s) Sums during the period under consideration. Trailing behind at second place was India Today Television at second placewith CWI of 6,687(000s) Sums. India Today Television was ranked second during 12 of the eighteen weeks of 2017 and third during the rest of the six weeks.

India Today Television was followed by CNN News 18 with 5,940 (000s) Sums. CNN News 18 was ranked second for 2 weeks, third for seven weeks and fourth for nine of the first 18 weeks of 2017. Close on the heels of the Network 18 groups flagship news channel was NTDV 24X7 with CWI of 5,706 (000s) Sums at fourth place. NDTV 24 X 7 was ranked second for four weeks, third for five weeks, fourth for eight weeks and fifth for one week during the first 18 weeks 0f 2017.

Please refer to the figure below for weekly data for the six English News channels considered in this paper.All the top four channels scored their highest ratings of year 2017 until week 18 during week 11 of 2017.The simple average of the combined weekly impressions of all the top five news channels in BARC’s list works out to 1922.765 including the figures for week 11 of 2017. Excluding week11, the simple average for the combined weekly impressions (000s) Sums of all the top five news channels in BARC’s list works out to 1,706.353 (000s) Sums, or more than 200,000 Sums of impressions lower. The sum of the highest combined weekly impressions of the all the English News channels in the top 5 channels list during weeks 1 to 18 of 2017 was in week 11 at 4,897 (000s) Sums, while the lowest was in week two of 2017 at 1,179 (000s) Sums.

The highest ratings scored by Times Now, the leader of the English News genre, was in week 11 with 2,282 (000s) Sums in week 11and the lowest was 475 (000s) Sums impressions in week 5 of 2017. Excluding data for week 11 of 2017, the simple average of Times Now weekly impressions was 654.706 (000s) Sums during the first 18 weeks of 2017

India Today Television scored the highest rating in week 11 of 805 (000s) Sums impressions (it was ranked third in week 11) and the lowest rating of 225 (000s) Sums impressions in week 2 of 2017 and its simple average of weekly impressions excluding data for week 11 was 346 (000s) Sums during the first 18 weeks of 2017.

CNN News 18 had a score of 1,006 (000s) Sums impressions in week 11 (it was ranked second in week 11). Its lowest score of 175 (000s) was in week one of 2017, and its simple average of weekly impressions was 290.235 (000s) Sums during the first 18 weeks of 2017.

NDTV 24X7 had a score of 656 (000s) Sums impressions in week 11. Its lowest score of 192 (000s) was in week three of 2017, and its simple average of weekly impressions was 297.059 (000s) Sums during the first 18 weeks of 2017.As is obvious, the ratings for week11 were the decider for the third place during weeks 1 to 18 of 2017.

On Saturday, March 11, 2017 (the first day of BARC week 11 – March 11 to Friday 17 March 2017) assembly elections results for Indian five states of the country were announced. On that single day, the top four English News channels ratings exceeded the simple average ratings for an entire week during the first 18 weeks of 2017. Please refer to the figure below.