With 197 Million Views, PM Modi’s Lockdown Announcement Beats IPL 2019 Final to Become Biggest-ever TV News Event

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the nation on March 24 announcing a 21-day India-wide lockdown saw higher unique visitors than the 2019 Indian Premier League final, which had recorded 133 million unique viewers.

According to data by BARC-Nielsen, as many as 197 million people viewed the PM’s 30-minute televised address on 201 TV channels. The address garnered 3,891 million viewing minutes.

The viewership on TV for the March 24 announcement by the PM is the highest so far and is considered as the biggest-ever news event.

This was Modi’s second televised address in five days on the coronavirus crisis. The March 19 ‘Janata Curfew’ announcement had witnessed 1,275 million viewing minutes and 83 million viewers had tuned into TV channels to listen to Modi.

Other events like last year’s Article 370 announcement on August 8 which aired on as many as 163 channels saw 65 million people viewing the telecast for 934 million total viewing minutes.

In 2016, when PM Modi had made the demonetisation announcement on November 8, the telecast had amassed 842 million viewing minutes and as many as 57 million people turned to TV to watch the telecast.

The finance minister’s address to the nation announcing relief packages for the poor to help them fight against coronavirus also saw growth in viewership. However, the data for the event has not been announced yet.

COVID-19 disruption has shown a significant increase in television viewership and it is expected that this will continue until the lockdown period is over.

Amid the key contributors that includes movies and GECs (general entertainment channels), news channels top the list with 57 percent growth in impressions and six percent growth in daily average reach.

All genres have shown growth in viewership in week 11 (the week starting March 14) as against the consumption in weeks two and four which is the period starting January 11 to 31.

The reach across all genres have also seen an increase. News channels have also seen growth in viewership among kids and women population.