Alokananda Chakraborty
News

BBC claims leadership

BBC claims market leadership in the business professionals category

agencyfaqs! News Bureau

NEW DELHI, December 7

BBC has claimed to be the largest viewed channel among the higher elechons of the corporate world, based on surveys by ORG-Marg, and the Pan Asia Cross Media Survey. Says Sunita Rajan, regional sales director, Asia, "BBC World reaches more business decision makers each week across Asia than any of the Star branded channels."

The BBC World is available to 170 million homes in 200 nations across the world, and according to the surveys, pulled ahead of its rivals in the Asia Pacific region.

According to the Pan Asia Cross Media Survey 2000 (PAX) results released last week, BBC World's weekly audience reach across the Asia Pacific region had risen to 15.4 per cent over last year. Across Asia as a whole, including India, the channels weekly reach was even higher, at 23.2 per cent.

BBC officials said that this meant that since 1998, the BBC World's audience reach across the Asia Pacific had increased by over 50 per cent.

According to the survey, while BBC saw an 11 per cent audience growth last year, CNN's viewership grew by 4 per cent and CNBC audiences fell by 9 per cent. The survey also found that while the viewership of BBC World had increased by 4 per cent among affluent adults, the viewership of CNBC among the same group had fallen by 25 per cent.

The PAX survey was conducted between May and August 2000, among 7,300 business decision makers and 6,829 affluent adults in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. Another survey in India came up with similar results.

Research by ORG-Marg among senior managers of the designation general manager and above across the top 500 private companies registered in India, the largest 100 public sector companies and the leading 100 companies in the financial sector (including banks, merchant banks, and foreign institutional investors), has put BBC World ahead of its rivals. The survey, named the "Decision Makers Survey", looks at the weekly viewership patterns of the target group.

The survey claims that, on an average, 73 per cent of respondents had watched BBC World during the previous week. By comparison, India's leading general entertainment channels, Sony, Zee TV and Doordarshan, had a viewership of less than 50 per cent of the respondents. The survey base was 1,030 people.

The survey also found that 84 per cent of CEOs, chairpersons, managing directors and company presidents had watched BBC in the previous month, while 74 per cent had watched Star News. The previous Decision Makers Survey, conducted in 1997, had also put BBC at the top.

According to the Indian Readership Survey, BBC World's distribution in India has soared, with a 38 per cent increase in viewership between 1998 and 1999.

Says Patrick Cross, managing director, BBC World, "We think that this success is because of our increased attention to programming that interests business decision-makers. We now pay a lot more attention to growth areas such as IT, communications, business and finance."

Banking on the popularity, the BBC has launched the Asia Business Report, with four live editions each week day morning. The production is in the BBC news bureau in Singapore.

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