SIP COLLEGE PROJECT

TITLE: Studying change in media

consumption habits of audiences in the
backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic

Submitted by: Submitted to:

Samiksha Sicarwar Prof. S.K Sood
PGMA1931
“New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) is an Indian television media
company founded in 1988 by Radhika Roy a journalist. NDTV started
off as a content provider for Doordrashan producing the show The
World This Week in November 1988.In 1989, NDTV created India's
first live coverage and analysis of the general elections In 1995
NDTV produced a national news show, "Tonight", which was telecast
on Doordarshan. In 1998 NDTV started its own 24X7 news channel
with STAR and later shifted to its own venture in 2003, launching
both the English and Hindi versions of the channel. NDTV's slogan is
"Experience. Truth First". Interestingly, during the initial years there
was always a delay of 10 minutes which later shifted to five minutes
between telecast and production of live news due to government
restrictions. In 1999, NDTV launched its website.”

NDTV: New Delhi Televison Limited

Key people: Pronnoy Roy, Radhika Roy
Industry: Mass media
Revenue: Rs. 424 crore
Net income: Rs. 19.44 crore
Number of employees: 543

Content range of NDTV Channel of NDTV Group are:

 NDTV 24x7 – 24-hour English news channel.

 NDTV India – 24-hour Hindi news channel.
 NDTV spice: 24 hour English news channel broadcast in UK
 NDTV Profit's Screen at Bombay Stock Exchange.
 NDTV Profit – Business news channel.
 NDTV Good Times – Lifestyle channel.
 NDTV HOP - In October 2018, NDTV and Airtel announced
the launch of NDTV HOP, a live channel for mobile devices which
carries its content in the vertical/portrait aspect ratio rather than the
traditional horizontal viewing mode.

NDTV target those audience who know hindi and English language.
There are the few contents offered by the NDTV 24*7 –
 Breakfast news
 Your questions on coronavirus
 Martin wolf talks to Sreenivasan Jain
 Cisco present business continuity
 Cell guru
 The car and the bike show
 The gadgets 360 show
 Live events
 Fighting covid-19 with Dr. Randeep Guleria

Breakfast news- Gives a quick recap of yesterday’s news and tells

about morning latest news. Mostly target audience is morning going
office people and senior citizens.

Your questions on coronavirus- People ask questions on covid-19 to

the doctors through media. This show target the audience of the entire
country because in this pandemic conditions its necessary to be aware
of this virus.

Martin wolf talks to Sreenivasan Jain- This shows talks about the
coronavirus’s global economy impact. Target audience is
businessman, management people, youth and several economist.

Cisco present business continuity- This shows talks about the business
news, news related to sensex and various economic conditions of the
country. Target audience is mostly businessman, people who belong
to trade sector, management people and several economist.

Cell guru-This shows talks about the latest news related to

technology, pictures and videos that goes viral in the internet, new
launch of cell phones. Target audience is mostly youth, tech people,
IT firms and celebrities.

The car and the bike show- This shows features several vintage
vehicles, latest automobiles and tell us about the present conditions of
the auto industry. Target audience is mostly youth, working people
and people who are fond of cars.

The gadget 360 show- This show present detailed analysis of the
latest gadgets and also share the various tips and tricks to make
optimum use of them. Target audience is mostly youth, IT sector and
various electronics company.

Live events- This shows gives information about the live events held
internationally and show live concert and shows held within the
country. Target audience is mainly youth.

Fighting covid -19 with Dr. RandeepGuleria- In this show Dr.

RandeepGuleria tells about how to fight against covid-19. Target
audience is the entire country.

Top 10 content offered by NDTV 24*7-

 Your questions with coronavirus

 Fighting covid-19 with Dr. RandeepGuleria
 Breakfast news
 Non-stop news
 CISCO present business continuity
 Martin Wolf talks to Sreenivasan Jain
 Cell Guru
 The car and the bike show
 The gadgets 360 show
 Live events

The most important audience group-

 Youth
 Business oriented people
 Management people
 Senior citizen
 Tech people
Lead anchor –
 Prannoy Roy
 Radhika Roy
 Suparna Singh
 Vikarm Chandra
 Sonia Singh

Lead content-

 Fighting against coronavirus with Dr. Randeep Guleria and

Your questions on coronavirus which is targeting the entire
country.
 Martin Wolf talks to Screenivasan Jain and CISCO presents
business continuity which target the youth and businessman and
several economist.

Major competitors of NDTV 24*7:-

 INDIA Today
 CNN NEWS18
 Republic TV
 TIMES NOW
 DD India

In the initial week of lockdown i.e week 12 (28 March to 3 April)

according to the BARC rating, INDIA Today and CNN NEWS18
shows a positive growth of 12.72 and 4.26 respectively. TIMES
NOW, Republic TV, Mirror Now and NDTV 24*7 have shown a
negative growth in the starting days of lockdown.
 Week 12 Week 13 Growth Rate

Broadcast Audience Research Council Rating

(Data is in thousands and represent the impression in a particular
week)

In the week 25 (20 June to 26June), BARC announce the top 5

English news channels.

Republic TV is at the top position with highest number of impressions

and NDTV 24*7 couldn’t make any position in the list.
Geographical reach
INDIA Today Worldwide
Republic TV worldwide
Times Now worldwide
CNN News18 South Asia, United Kingdom
WION worldwide
NDTV 24*7 worldwide
Mirror Now worldwide

Audience size (March 28 to April 3)

INDIA Today 657700 impressions
Republic TV 619700 impressions
Times Now 386000 impressions
CNN News18 203300 impressions
WION 177300 impressions
NDTV 24*7 138500 impressions
Mirror Now 90500 impressions

Lead anchor
INDIA Today Rahul kanwal, Sushant Mehta, PreetiChaodhary
Republic TV Arnab Ranjan Goswami,
Times Now Maroof Raza, Rahul Shivshankar
CNN News18 Cyrus Broacha, Marya Shakil
WION Krishna Kumar K
NDTV 24*7 Nidhi Razdan, Prannoy Roy
Mirror Now Faye D’Souza
 Top ranking features/ shows
INDIA Today Newstrack , To the point
Republic TV The debate with Arnab Goswami
Times Now India upfront, News hour@9
CNN News18 News 18 headstart, Afternoon prime
WION Wion sped news, Wionfineprint
NDTV 24*7 CISCO present business continuity, Prime time
Mirror Now INDIA this morning, Nation Now

Content range
INDIA Today Newstrack, To the point, NEWS india
Republic TV Newsroom, The debate with Arnab Goswami
Times Now INDIA upfront, news hour@9, news hours @10, news
hour@11
CNN News18 NEWS18, Afternoon prime,India 360, 8AM Express,
Last night edition, Faceoff tonight
Mirror NOW Reporter live, Nation now, Speed news now, INDIA
this morning, The urban debate, News overnight, The
last word
WION Wion World order, The diplomacy show, Top stories,
Wion speed news, Wion wallet, WION fineprint
Source of data:- www.barc.com , www.wikipedia.com

The 3 major target audience are:-

1. Youth
2. Business and management people
3. Senior citizen
Youth are very much oriented towards news nowadays, as they are
worried about their future. There carrier has not started yet and they
know the economic condition during this pandemic. Youth are very
much focus on the news these days as they want to know about the
economy scenario to make their future decisions. Business and
management people are another major target audience as they have to
build and work according to the economy strategy in future. Business
and management people are the backbone of the country’s economy and
play the crucial role in the financial conditions of the country. Senior
citizen is also another major target audience as they should know about
this virus and need to know preventions of it. According to the WHO
guidelines senior citizens and children below 10 are more prone to the
coronavirus as their body immunity strong is not so strong. These three
are the major target audience now a days and all the news channels are
targeting these three segment. These three audience group is the most
affected group during this pandemic. All the news channel want to
target these three major segment and want to gain maximum viewers.
Media channel show relevant news so that their viewership get
increased.

In this assignment I have done a survey whose purpose is to collect the

media consumption data and knowing the reason why people’s
preference got changed during this lockdown.
Survey objective:-
 To know the time devoted to media consumption in this pandemic
scenario.
 Compare the shift in genre preferences of the period before the
crisis to that during the crisis.
 Which media channel is most preferred.
 Most preferred genre during this pandemic.
Questionnaire of the survey.
1. Name
2. Age
3. Which genre you preferred the most before lockdown?
4. Which genre you preferred the most during this lockdown?
5. On an average how often do you spend watching news in a day?
6. Which English news channel you prefer the most?
7. Why you prefer the above selected channel?
8. Among the sub-genre given below, which is your first watching
priority?
 9. Among the sub-genre given below, which is your second
watching priority?
10. Among the sub-genre given below, which is your third watching
priority?
11. Why you shift your media preference?

After doing this survey I get the below result:-

Total 70 people responded to the survey and for senior citizen I take one
to one interview and telephonic interview.

According to the data, before lockdown only 11.5% preferred watching

news and during lockdown 46.2% people preferred watching news. This
shows that during this pandemic scenario people changed their
preferences and shift to news as they want to get themselves update
about the coronavirus and economy impact.
According to the survey 46.2% people watch news for atleast 1 hour a
day, this shows that people minimum engage their 1 hour to get
information regarding global economy and news regarding covid-19.

According to the survey, maximum people like to watch Republic TV

as its percentage is highest i.e. 33.3% and secondly preferred media
channel is India Today as its percentage is 23.1%. third is CNN News18
with 18.3% and fourth is NDTV 24*7 with 15%.
According to the survey, During this pandemic scenario the first priority
is to watch news related to coronavirus, second priority is to watch news
on economy affected during this lockdown and third is to watch news
related to technology.
Controversies regarding NDTV:

 “The CBI had filed a criminal conspiracy case against NDTV

managing director Roy in 1998 for alleging fraud in
Doordarshan upgrade.”
 “The Sunday Guardian ran a story which exposed the NDTV's
financial misdemeanours and malpractices in connivance with
ICICI Bank.”
 “The "Income Tax Appellate Tribunal" (ITAT) has upheld an
income tax department finding that promoters of NDTV used
their own shell companies to round-trip investments of ₹642
crore during 2009-10, making them liable for recovery of tax
and penalty.”
 “In September 2018, Roy and his wife Radhika were issued
show cause notice by SEBI for violation of insider trading
regulations though their company NDTV downplayed the
notices stating they were seeking legal advice on the issue.
Earlier that year, in the month March they were fined Rs 3 lac
each by SEBI for disclosure lapses.”
 “In August 2019, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a
fresh case against Prannoy Roy, his wife Radhika Roy and
former NDTV CEO Vikram Chandra for violating FDI rules and
routing of tainted money of unknown public servants through
shell firms.”

Suggestions:

Past controversies of the channel has harm the brand reputation, it loses
its viewership and people shift to another news channel. Fraud and
criminal cases filed against the channel result in the decrease of the
loyalty of the channel. Issues with the income tax department decrease
the number of promoters of the channel. In my opinion NDTV should
work on their brand image and rebuilt their reputation, so that they can
gain the trust of the viewers by providing authenticated news.