TAM ratings pitch Star News to the top
18 Dec 2008
New Delhi: Star News says on the countiong day of the state asembly elections, its viewership surged ahead and grabbed the maximum eyeballs, dislodging arch rival Aaj Tak from the No1 position.
Citing the latest TAM ratings, Star News said it was the most viewed channel with a 23-per cent markets share followed by Aaj Tak at 21 per cent. It said India TV was at 12 per cent, IBN7 11 per cent, and Zee News 10 per cent.
On the counting day, the viewership of news channels saw a whopping 45-per cent rise of the normal day viewership.
Hindi news channels occupied 10.8 per cent of the entire TV viewing share for the counting day on Monday 8th December.
"The TAM report further says that for the live coverage of the counting there was a dramatic difference in the viewership between Star News (34 per cent) and Aaj Tak (18 per cent) during the morning hours (8:00 am to 1:00 pm).
"Star News bagged the top slot on all counts - be it in the channel share or the top election related shows on news channels. STAR News show 'Kaun banega Mukhyamantri' made a clean sweep by dominating the top election related special programs. No wonder, STAR News was the only channel to have a presenting sponsor "Manikchand" for "Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri". The entire shift and preference shown towards STAR News simply proves that the consumers will opt for the best programming no matter who is providing it.
Commenting on the excellent TAM ratings, Neeraj Sanan, MCCS, said, "The entire news genre gained immensely during the election period. STAR News became the flavour of the day as audience flocked to watch its coverage on the counting day. All this is because of the integrated effort of the management team at MCCS.
With unique editorial content, user friendly design of reporting the latest updates, seasoned political anchors like Deepak Chaurasia, guest speaker like N S Sidhu, a stable distribution system of the channel, and one month of aggressive 360 degree of marketing promotions; STAR News has been able to garner the maximum viewership and retain the audience."