Abki baar kiski sarkar: Political uncertainty gives channels a chance to up revenue game

The general election results have presented a lucrative opportunity for television news channels to boost their viewership and revenue streams. While a one-sided election may have seen interest in TV news return to normal, the cliffhanger nature of results promises continued excitement in the days and possibly weeks to come, poll pundits predict. 

The BJP-led NDA has bagged 291 seats. BJP (240) fell short of the majority mark of 272. This means that it will have to rely on its three dozen ambitious regional allies to form the next government. Portfolio distribution and other concessions will likely be key bargaining chips in the NDA negotiations. 

“Even the India Bloc, which won 233 seats, is navigating carefully to explore realignments with some of the NDA allies and cobble together a coalition capable of forming the government,” sources claimed.  

With the prospect of a prolonged government formation process looming large, channels can capitalize on increased viewership driven by the suspense and drama surrounding the two sets of negotiations, industry leaders told e4m. 

“News as a genre should benefit in the current scenario,” Ankit Desai, Head - Media & Digital Marketing (India & Global Centre of Excellence), Marico tells e4m, giving a hint that advertisers, especially the FMCG ones, may further loosen their purse strings to capitalize on high TV viewership.  

Echoing the sentiments, Krishnarao Buddha, Sr. Category Head - Marketing, Parle Products, says, “An event of the scale of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections and its result announcement has increased considerable interest amongst viewers of news channels. Thus, we can expect a definite rise in revenue for the News genre for the next few weeks.”

Buddha also noted that the T20 World Cup and particularly the India Pakistan clash on 9th June can divert the attention towards the sports genre. However, the government formation followed by the budget passing effective 1st July will also raise significant interest amongst news viewers.

Expressing his excitement, Varun Kohli, CEO, Bharat Express, says, “Television news channels can leverage this political uncertainty to attract advertisers and command higher advertising rates.” He expects a 30-40% hike in the viewership for the genre during the results week. 

Mona Jain, Chief Revenue Officer, Zee Media Corporation Limited, shared: "Lok Sabha elections are always the most impactful tentpole that news channels have. There are many advertisers who through their experience, foresight and intellect understand this and leverage the opportunity to create an immediate visibility and top of mind for their brands."

"Yesterday there would be no consumer who would not have logged into a news platform to know the results of which they also had contributed by casting their vote. This is an involved consumer who is watching the screen with full attention and any communication will be registered strongly with high recall.

And the proof is from the response we had by advertisers who came and invested to create saliency for the brand.
There were existing news advertisers and many new ones.
This obviously translates into an upside on the revenue front - and is hopefully demonstration of reinforcement of the power of news genre for existing and news advertisers."

Election bonanza 

Notably, the election season in India has provided a strong impetus for the growth of the news channels over the last few quarters. For instance, Network18’s revenue totalled Rs 1,556 crore in FY24, marking a 20 percent uptick from the Rs 1,252 crore reported in FY23. Some like NDTV and News Nation launched their regional channels ahead of elections.  

Exit polls and the counting day also brought windfall gains as channels hiked their ad rates by 50 percent to cash in on the occasion, their viewership on TV and YouTube also jumped. 

“Even digital news platforms, particularly YouTube channels of leading media houses, witnessed unprecedented traffic, surpassing traditional TV viewership by many-fold. Advertisers and agencies are likely to redirect some of their funds from TV to digital news sites and YouTube channels for greater reach and impact,” says Sandeep Amar, digital expert and founder of pdlab.me. 

India has over 400 news channels in a market that is mostly privately owned and in regional languages. 

News channels command nearly 25 percent of ad volume, but barely 8% of the TV advertising revenue, as per the latest EY report. It also says that news viewership grew 11% in 2023 but it still remains over 30% lower than its 2020 levels.