The overall ad volumes dropped 9% in week 18 (May 2-8, 2020) as opposed to week 17 (April 25-1 May, 2020) as per the data provided by TV audience measurement body, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) (Across Genre : All India (Urban+Rural) in collaboration with Nielsen. Titled, ‘How are Media Habits Changing as India Enters Week 7 of the Lockdown’, the report also highlights how the total number of advertisers dipped by 6.9% to 1331 in week 18, despite seeing a rise in advertisers in week 17.
According to the report, the top ten advertisers inventory remained flat in week 18, despite recording a dip in the previous week. However, while week 17 posted a rise in the next 40 advertisers, week 18 recorded a dip in inventory of the next 40 advertisers as well. Out of this, general entertainment channels (GEC) remained consistent for the last couple of weeks. News and movies genre, on the other hand, witnessed a drop of 7%-8% as compared to week 17.
As for viewership, while non prime-time viewership continues to operate higher than pre-covid ) January 11-31, 2020) levels by 59%, primetime viewership is 7% lower than pre-covid levels. This is primarily due to lack of original and new content. However, viewership has shown lesser decline in Red Zone areas as the movement restrictions are higher in those zones.
The report, which also revealed data on content consumption on smartphones, highlighted how content consumption on smartphones has also decreased 2.1% with users spending 3.5 hours a day on their devices in week 18. Out of this, nearly 18% is spent on messaging apps, 15% on social media apps. Meanwhile,14% is spent on video streaming apps, while gaming accounts for 10% of the total time spent in week 18.
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