Kerala Floods: Malayalam News genre witnesses highest viewership for 2018: BARC India

The incessant rains that lashed Kerala has kept viewers in the state hooked on to their television sets as they are solely relying on the medium to keep track of the flood situation. As per the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, with 214.1 million Impressions, Week 32 (4-10 August) saw the highest peak for the Malayalam News genre in 2018. The genre saw a 98 per cent growth in the week compared to the average of the previous four weeks.

According to the data, Kerala has a total TV population of close to 31.3 million. Out of this, around 25.8 million people watched Malayalam news in week 32. This means that 8 out of 10 people in the state sampled news in this week.

Out of the state’s total TV viewership, 17 percent came from Malayalam News Genre alone, with every viewer spending an average of 1 hr 3 mins watching news.

The viewership recorded in this period was the highest for the year in the Kerala market as can be inferred from the chart below.



August 10, 2018 i.e Friday alone accounted for 34 per cent of the total news viewership for the week at 72.8 million impressions.




The age wise split for the viewership has been given below. Out of the total news viewers, 21 percent were youth (15-30 year olds).



While Asianet News stood at the top with 36 per cent of total news viewership, Manorama News, Media One TV, People TV and News18 Kerala also gained more than two times the average ratings of its previous four weeks.



This is the second highest viewership peak recorded for Malayalam news genre since BARC India started measuring TV viewership. The highest so far was 215.1 million Impressions generated on the back of coverage of molestation case filed against a leading actor in the Malayalam film industry.