TV viewership dropped by 60 percent during the nine minutes on April 5 as compared to previous weeks
On April 3, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again addressed the nation regarding coronavirus and the fight against it, the telecast garnered one billion viewing minutes on TV.
The video message by the PM was aired across 199 channels and as many as 119 million TV viewers watched the telecast, according to BARC-Nielsen data released on April 9.
In the message, PM had urged the citizens to switch off all lights for nine minutes and light up lamps, diyas, torch or cell phone flashlights.
While there was no mention of switching off TV sets in the PM’s address, Indians did turn off television viewing and this impacted the viewership so much so that TV viewership in those nine minutes was the lowest ever since 2015.
TV viewership dropped by 60 percent during the nine minutes on April 5 as compared to previous weeks.
The decline started by 08:53 pm on April 5 and came back to current trends only after 09:30 pm on the same day.
PM’s earlier address viewership
Modi’s earlier address, when the lockdown was announced on March 24, saw higher unique visitors than 2019 IPL finals, which had recorded 133 million unique viewers.
The announcement that went on for around 30 minutes had recorded 3,891 million viewing minutes and 196.5 million viewers had logged on to TV to watch the telecast.
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.
The March 19 Janta 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 and 934 million viewing minutes.
In 2016, when PM Modi had made the demonetization announcement on November 8, the telecast amassed 842 million viewing minutes and as many as 57 million people turned to TV to watch the telecast.Time to show-off your poker skills and win Rs.25 lakhs with no investment. Register Now!
