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Journalism of Courage
The Budget is all about reconciling numbers. At TV channels,the story is no different.
On the day that TAM Media Research released the viewership data for the Budget week,most channels,including CNBC TV18,CNBC Awaaz,CNN-IBN,Times Now and Bloomberg-UTV,released prominent advertisements claiming to be the most watched channel in the country. Even CNBC TV18 and CNN-IBN,part of the same Network 18 family,claimed the No. 1 spot.
The CNBC TV18 ad said the channel led across English news channels on Budget Day,across audiences. CNN-IBN claimed to have been the most preferred English news channel on the day.
Times Now said it was the No. 1 English news channel on Budget Day with 34 per cent viewership shares.
Nobody is lying. Factually,everybody is correct, says Dilip Venkatraman,CEO,CNN-IBN.
His counterpart at CNBC TV18 and CNBC Awaaz,Anil Uniyal,explains. The devil is in the fine print. It is all about slicing and dicing the data.
So,CNBC TV 18 claimed maximum viewership among the male audience in the age group of 25 years and above in the cable and satellite households,whereas CNN-IBN said it was most watched among the male audience cutting across all age groups in all six metros.
Times Now said it was the most watched channel during Pranab Mukherjees Budget speech.
Going by these parameters,CNBC TV18 was the most viewed English channel in the business as well as general news category. In the business news segment,it had a 61 per cent market share,followed by ET Now (22 per cent). The general English news segment was led by CNN-IBN (35 per cent),followed by Times Now (27 per cent).
Budget is like a one-day World Cup cricket match… It is,therefore,an interesting opportunity for broadcasters to create perceptions about ones worthiness, says Sunil Lulla,CEO,Times Global Broadcasting,the Bennett,Coleman Group.
