Is India’s television news industry killing itself?

The latest rampage among news broadcasters was top of his mind over the use of landing pages for several executives. As explained in the earlier column, the landing page is the channel that first appears on the screen when a viewer switches on their set top box. Since the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) records the ratings of everything consumed on TV, the viewing of this default channel is also recorded. So, if you land on a news channel and spend a little bit of time on it before converting it, it helps to increase its viewership and reach, which forms the basis for selling ads. Pay TV channels to book landing pages take advantage at the expense of others. There has been a raging debate with divided channels over whether landing page readings should be included in news genre data by BARC.

However, the TV news industry’s problems go beyond instant landing page controversy. For starters, the news genre hasn’t really evolved. Its share in the total TV pie rose from 7% during the initial Covid-led lockdown to 21%, but declined thereafter. Sadly, the news broadcaster could neither maintain nor create the surplus earned. According to BARC data shared by a broadcaster, (BARC does not disclose data to non-subscribers), for week 40-43 of 2022, the news share among viewers over 15 years accounted for 6.6% of the total TV pie. was. Apparently this figure was even lower (4-5%) some time ago.

Not only this. Ad rates for the genre have more or less stabilized. Although some of the major channels have recently claimed a hike in their spot rates, the average price of a 10-second spot remains between 2,000 more 5,000 on popular Hindi news channels.

Some big consumer brands are cautious about spending their advertising budgets on news channels due to toxic content. A senior executive of a large fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company said it has reduced its exposure on news channels, though TV remains a media spending platform for its food brands. He cited budget tightening for the news genre, as the reason for poor content quality and skewed news coverage by most TV channels.

As a result, TV news industry executives stated that the overall size of the news genre may still be around 5,000 crores. Media experts said advertisers may not be willing to pay more, as the news may not be sticky enough for the audience.

“In news, nothing has changed since I joined a news channel more than a decade ago,” said Chintamani Rao, an advertising and media industry veteran and former chief executive of India TV. Even as the news delivery environment has changed, news channels have not, he said.

With a smartphone in hand, consumers today can access news from anywhere. “Specifically, since TV news is limited to studio-based shout-out matches rather than ground reportage. Therefore, TV news does not offer anything new to the consumers. Maybe some people still start news channels out of habit.”

Over the years, the news broadcasting sector in India has been mired in controversy. Be it the television ratings scam, which exposed meter tampering by news channels, the rise of toxic content on the small screen, suspension and reinstatement of news ratings, both of which were accompanied by uproar from industry stakeholders, splits in news broadcasters. The uproar over the issue of association or now the landing page.

Off-record media buyers said that some news channels do not want any viewership numbers and will instead remain a data-dark genre. However, not everyone agrees, as many broadcasters are battling for a more robust and transparent audience measurement system with a larger sample size.

Despite the grim picture, there is hope if the industry works together. TV news is still a very attractive reach builder for advertisers. And for viewers, live sports and news are still linear TV attractions that can be tapped.

Suchi Bansal is the Media, Marketing and Advertising Editor of Mint. Simple posts will focus on important issues, or just fun stuff, related to all three areas.