News Channels Analysis:
NDTV Making Strong Inroads

Introduction
Television is emerging as the most powerful media in India with capacity to influence nearly 80 million households or about 40% of India's population. It accounts for approximately 60% of the entertainment industry revenue. Channels in all genres have been increasing, each fighting for its share of the advertising pie and for eyeballs. CyberMedia Research, a part of Cyber Media India Limited carried out a telephonic study in mid August 2003, to understand the awareness, mind share and preference of channels in different categories amongst TV watching audience. The respondents were restricted to only those who watched Television for more than an hour a day. The study has thrown up some very thought provoking results. CyberMedia Research is pleased to share a brief analyses restricting only to News channels at the moment.

Top-of-Mind Recall

Amongst 323 respondents who had indicated their top-of-mind recall for news channels, Aaj Tak was found to lead the pack with 66% followed by Star News, Zee News and NDTV (Figure 3).

Star News, though at number two position, was found to have a balanced top-of-mind recall across cities.

· While Zee News was found to be more popular in Mumbai, NDTV was found to be much more popular in Delhi.

· Compared to a similar study conducted by CyberMedia Research in April/ May, 2003, in Delhi, mind share for NDTV has substantially gone up.

Total Unaided Recall

Aaj Tak is to news channels what Star Plus is in the general category.

To the question, 'Please name any three news channels that come to your mind', Aaj Tak, followed by Zee News, Star News and NDTV was found to have the highest awareness.

First Preferred Channel

Study of the first preferred channel of the respondents who had shown recall of a particular channel indicate the following (Figure 5):

Over 70% of the respondents who had mentioned Aaj Tak in total unaided recall (296), also ranked it as their first preferred channel and ranked Zee News and Star News as their second and third preferences.

Of the 144 respondents who had listed Zee News in the unaided recall, just 23% ranked it as their first preference, while majority of them again ranked Aaj Tak as their most preferred channel.

Amongst 108 respondents who had mentioned Star News in the unaided recall, only about a third gave this channel as its first preference.

Of the 90 respondents who had mentioned NDTV in total unaided recall, just one-third ranked NDTV at number 1 position while over 50% ranked Aaj Tak as the most preferred channel.

To conclude, amongst News category, Aaj Tak occupies a dominant position in the minds of the consumers, both in terms of recall and preference. NDTV, while occupying number four position in terms of total recall, has made strong inroads in the last few months, but is concentrated more in north.

Complete details of the study can be obtained from:
V. Shekhar Avasthy
Research Manager

Cyber House
B-35, Sector 32, Institutional
Gurgaon - 122002
shekharv@cmil.com
Cell: +91-9811596669