Obama more loved than Bush by media; sweeps primetime coverage

According to a study conducted by CMS Media Lab, Barack Obama's visit received more primetime TV news coverage in India than any other foreign head of state.

The sixth US President to visit India after Presidents Bush, Clinton, Carter, Nixon and Eisenhower clearly set the Indian news channels rolling with more verve than ever.

According to a study conducted by CMS Media Lab, Barack Obama's three day India stopover received more primetime TV news coverage in India than any other foreign head of state; needless to add that he also attracted greater coverage attention compared to any Indian Prime Minister's visit to any foreign country!

CMS Media Lab conducted its primetime (7-11 pm) study over six major news channels (Aaj Tak, DD News, STAR News, Zee News, CNN-IBN and NDTV 24x7) from November 1-8 and November 6-8, thus inferring that 85-90 per cent of primetime coverage across all these channels was devoted to Obama alone.

Interestingly, the study suggests that the three-day visit of Obama, from November 6-8, received 70 per cent more primetime space than the three-day visit of his predecessor, George Bush, in 2006. Obama received 2410 primetime minutes, whereas Bush's visit in 2006 got 1392 minutes of primetime coverage.

For the record, during the period, the news channels carried 207 news stories and 49 special programmes, thereby devoting 845.4 minutes and 1565 minutes respectively of the primetime on Obama's India visit.

Meanwhile, the news channels carried 309 news stories and 64 special programmes, devoting 1105 and 1892 minutes of primetime respectively to Obama's visit during the period November 1-8. According to the study, which covered only six news channels, during the period, Obama's visit got the maximum coverage on CNN-IBN, with 636 minutes of coverage, followed by NDTV 24x7, which allotted 625 minutes.

Zee News spent 575 minutes and DD News devoted 478 minutes of primetime for the President's visit. Aaj Tak and STAR News allotted 376 and 307 minutes respectively to the US President's visit.

However, for the period November 6-8 when Obama visited India, it was NDTV 24x7 that led the flock, devoting 535 minutes of its primetime to Obama coverage.

Speaking to afaqs!, Sudha Natarajan, president and chief operating officer, Lintas Media Group, says, "While the coverage across both the genres was extremely good, I feel the English news viewers felt more involved with the US and Obama than the Hindi news audience. There was a basic difference in the psychographics of the two audience sets, wherein the regional viewers were more pragmatic."

As far as the 7-11 pm primetime viewership for the event is concerned, aMap data (C&S 15+, top six metros) reveals that Sunday, November 7 witnessed the maximum upsurge in audience viewership in both English and Hindi news genres. Within the English news genre, the day saw a 44 per cent jump in its market share over the previous Sunday (October 31), while it was a 25 per cent upswing when it came to the Hindi news genre.

For the record, the English news group for this aMap data consists of CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, NDTV 24x7 and Times Now, while the Hindi news group consists of Aaj Tak, DD News, IBN7, India TV, NDTV India, STAR News and Zee News.

So did the high viewership have any impact on the channel inventories?

Natarajan states that while the inventory was expected to go up by a bit, "it had totally exceeded our expectations".

Nikhil Rangnekar, executive director, India-West, however, poses a different opinion. He says, "The event was surely an obviously big one but since it was such a short one, there was not really enough to sell on that basis. Had it been a longish event, maybe it could be monetised."

Despite an evident upsurge in the Sunday viewership, there was not much change in the Saturday (November 6) and Monday (November 8) viewership figures in both the genres.

In the English news genre, November 6 captured a 2.2 market share, as against the 2.6 per cent market share it had grabbed in the previous week (October 30). For November 8, it was 2.3 per cent market share, versus the 2.1 per cent it had grabbed in the previous week (November 1).

In the Hindi genre, November 6 remained constant, with its market share at 4.6 per cent, compared to the previous week (October 30). For November 8, it was down to 3.7 per cent market share, as against the 4.3 per cent market share grabbed in the previous week (November 1).