BARC Report: Times Now, Aaj Tak lead news genre during April 18 and May 8

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), the recently launched television audience measurement metric system, has released a report analysing the viewership of news genre (Hindi and English language) during the two big events - the verdict on Salman Khan's hit-and-run case and the earthquake that shook Nepal and some parts of India.

The new metric system, with the help of its BMW software, has presented an in-depth analysis of the viewership of the genre from April 18 and May 8 (data for week 16, 17, 18), in terms of ratings in thousands, coverage in thousands and reach.

According to BARC, "Like the Seismograph helps measure an earthquake, BARC India's BMW software helps analyse and gain rare insights on television audience viewership measurement and analytics in times of hell, distraught and celebration. All media has contributed to creating awareness and sensitivity around such shattering incidents, both natural and man-made."

Hindi News:

For the record, Rat'000 is the number of target households in 000s where an "event" was on, averaged across minutes, also known as TVT. Cov'000 is the number of target households ('000s) in the universe where at least one of the events in a set of events was on, also known as Cume Reach in 000s.

It was also observed that ratings of Hindi news channels peaked on April 25 (Nepal Earthquake), the ripple effect was observed for the next three days. On May 6, the spike in viewership was due to news surrounding Salman Khan.

May 6 and May 8 - Salman Khan news - interesting observation to take note of is the rat for ABP News was highest on May 6, whereas Aaj Tak gained on May 8.

English News:

In all three weeks, Times Now remained the clear market leader with around 38 per cent channel share in the current week (week 18).