Rural India’s love for Television
While we are talking about the growing influence of video advertising on Youtube and VOD platforms like Hotstar, Voot, etc., don’t think that TV Advertising is dying. In a country that has achieved 100% electrification just now, television has just started its upward journey towards rural India.
BARC India has concluded The Broadcast India 2018 Survey recently and there are some interesting insights about TV viewership in India
- Between 2016 and 2018, there has been a TV viewership growth of 10% in rural India as compared to 4% in urban India during the same period.
- The number of homes in Rural India with TV grew from 99 Million to 109 Million during last two years. The total number of television households in India has also risen to 197 Million from 183 Million in 2016.
- There has been a 7% growth in the main Hindi Speaking Market- Bihar/Jharkhand, UP/Uttarakhand, MP/Chhattisgarh and Delhi, out of which Bihar/Jharkhand have registered 25% growth (41% growth in rural areas only).
What are FTA (Free To Air) TV Channels?
Free to Air TV channels are TV channels that are broadcasted in an unencrypted format that anyone can watch if they are having the right equipment. In simpler words, Free to Air TV channels do not need the audience to pay for the subscription or viewing the programs. The most popular example is Doordarshan.
Why are FTA Channels important for advertisers eyeing Hindi Speaking Rural Markets?
Free to Air Channels are not only limited to Doordarshan only, even the most popular TV Channels like Star, Sony and Zee have introduced their own Free To Air Channels that mostly play the old content of their popular counterparts like Zee TV, Sony and Star Plus. Last year in August, Star came up with Star Bharat channel that has original content.
This story would not be complete without the mention of DD Free Dish, a service provided by Public Service Broadcaster Prasar Bharati. The main feature of this DTH service is that unlike popular DTH services like Airtel and Tata Sky, this one doesn’t need to pay a monthly subscription fee for the content. Most of the Free to Air Channels have bought slots in DD Free Dish. DD Free Dish has been very successful, mostly in rural parts of India because, a household only needs to buy a TV and the dish and can watch uninterrupted TV without the hassles and logistics of paying subscription fees. Also, the overall cost is very less. According to a recent BARC survey, 13% of the households (approx 26 Million) have DD Freedish.
We can have a look at BARC Weekly report for this week and we can see that most of the popular channels in rural India are Free to Air Channels:
A list of Free To Air Channels in India and their Advertising Rates (Per Second)*
*Kindly note that this is a reference price only that may vary based on time slot and seasonality.
How can The Media Ant help?
The Media Ant is an online platform for media buying. You can check rates for all the television channels by visiting our site www.themediaant.com/television or write to us at Help@TheMediaAnt.Com. We can get the best prices for you and execute the entire marketing campaign at no extra cost.
If you liked our article, do read the following articles on Television Advertising too:
https://blog.themediaant.com/tv-viewership-ipl2018-fifa2018
https://blog.themediaant.com/8-tips-for-tv-advertising-india
