Amidst the fan fare created around digital media reach coupled with Digital India movement, BARC released some interesting TV Viewership Numbers in India. The TV viewership showed increase across all parameters when compared to a similar number in 2013.
TV Viewership in India
TV penetration in the country jumped by 10% in 2017 at 64% when compared to 2013 which was at 54%. The TV viewing universe stood at 780 mn in 2017 compared to 675 mn in 2013. TV owning home also jumped 19% and stood at 183 mn in 2017. However, the interesting point is that out of these 183 mn households 99 mn households are in rural India compared to 84 mn households in urban India. Thereby rural India TV ownership stands 17% higher than Urban India.
TV Advertisers stay Cautious
Though TV Viewership numbers show a growth but advertising agencies predict slower growth in ad revenues compared to previous years. GroupM, in its report, This Year Next Year states that the total ad expenditure grew 12% in 2016 and predicts a slower growth at 10% in 2017. Another report jointly published by media agency Madison and advertising magazine Pitch, however, projected TV to grow at a higher 13% in 2017. According to the Pitch-Madison report, among all media, TV still enjoys the largest share of the advertising pie at 38%.
One of the reason of increase in reach is the fact that earlier viewership was reported from the age of 4 years plus which this time has been brought down to two years plus. Clearly, increase in rural viewership will skew advertisers to create content specific towards the rural market.
