This analysis is intended to understand the impact of events like Ayodhya Attack and the London Bombings on consumption of News Channels. A comparison is drawn between the impact in two cities of western India viz. Mumbai - the financial capital of India and Ahmedabad - one of the most prosperous cities in the country.

We start by comparing the level of ratings for the month preceding the two major events to hit the television screens and both separated from the two cities by huge geographical distances.

Comparison between June 2004 and June 2005

• These two months are chosen as they immediately precede the events under study and July has not fully set. The reason of conducting this comparison is to understand the increase in ratings for news channels during the last one-year and to determine the base against which the performance of news genre will be measured.
  
  
• Hourly ratings for June 2004 and June 2005 were used from aMap with the universe defined as individuals residing in cable homes with age more than 4 years and a minimum consecutive usage of 30 seconds was used as a filter.
  
  
• Two leading channels AajTak and NDTV India were selected as they had the highest ratings in the given target group and understandably the impact, if any will be the highest on these channels. It is not done to undermine any other competing channel.
  

Figure 1 clearly exhibits that the given target group starts watching Hindi news from 7AM onwards and the ratings reach their first peak at 9 AM. The maximum ratings achieved are 0.5 but the overall figure never breaches the 0.35 mark till about midnight.

Second time the figure of 0.35 is touched during the 4PM time slot. The 0.5 mark is breached at 5PM, 9PM and the highest ratings that Hindi News Channels garner are at 11PM wherein they touch a mark of 0.7.

Figure 1 also establishes that AajTak leads NDTV India during all the day parts and clearly defines the Hindi news viewing in the city of Mumbai rising and falling as per the overall Hindi news viewing in the city.

AajTak ratings are in the range of 0.1 and 0.2 between 9AM and 11PM and NDTV India on the other hand manages to barely touch the 0.1 mark during June 2004.

• The ratings for Hindi News Genre falls below 0.1 in the 1AM to 2AM time slot.
  
  
• Looking at the overall picture Hindi News is consumed between 6AM and 1AM.
  
  
• The highest ratings that Hindi News Genre manages are 0.7.

Interestingly Ahmedabad market (Figure 2) displays a slightly different trend wherein the first peak is observed at 7AM and reaches close to 0.4 and alters slightly during the next hour steadily rising to about 0.7 by 6 PM. The peak is achieved at 9PM where the ratings touch almost 0.9 before tapering down.

Ahmedabad presented a mixed picture with NDTV India leading AajTak in the afternoon slots. The NDTV India rating graph nicely shaping up as per the overall news viewing of Ahmedabad city. NDTVIndia hitting a high of 0.4 and AajTak confined within the 0.2 parameter.

Comparing the ratings of June 2004 with June 2005 (Figure 3) we see that in Mumbai, one year changed the leadership positions and AajTak was no longer the leader in the CS 4+ target group.

NDTV India whose ratings were moving between 0.1 and 0.2 last June has managed to move up and overtake AajTak in the post afternoon slot. Now its ratings are moving in the region of 0.2 to 0.4 during the prime time slot of 7 PM to 11PM, whereas AajTak has improved on its rating performance in the morning slot where it still manages to lead over NDTV India.

In the evening slots it actually is doing worse than last year and this is the time when NDTV India takes the leads and maintains it also.

Figure 3 also exhibits that the ratings for Hindi News as a genre is also on the upswing. The viewership starts increasing from 7 AM onwards and hit a peak of 0.8 at 10 AM that is double of early morning peak ratings of 0.4 last year. Also the viewership also hits another peak of 1 at 1PM before tapering down. The evening primetime for news in Mumbai in June 2005 starts from 6 PM and reaches a peak of 1.74 at 11 PM.

In June 2004 the maximum rating garnered by Hindi News Genre was 0.7 and the increase in the evening prime time slot is more than double in Mumbai. This establishes clearly the fact that NEWS as a genre is growing majorly and is a key driver of television viewership.

In the same period the total television viewership has not changed much as shown in Figure 4. The morning slot has seen some increase in ratings whereas the ratings for the entire universe were better last year. In such a situation more than doubling of ratings for NEWS genre is indeed very exciting for the NEWS Broadcasters.

Ahmedabad on the other hand behaves slightly different than Mumbai when it comes to NEWS and the difference remains when we look at the ratings for June 2005.

The ratings for NEWS Channels peak at 8AM and then at 1PM and the biggest peak comes at 9PM. So except the shift from 7AM to 8AM there is not much difference in the manner NEWS is watched in Ahmedabad.

Except for the 8PM to 10PM slot AajTak walks away with the cake in Ahmedabad. AajTak retains its ratings between 0.1 and 0.2 with a huge surge towards 1PM. NDTV India ratings fall from a high of 0.3 & 0.4 to between 0.1 and 0.2.

1. AajTak comes out stronger in the afternoon prime time slot and exchanges the position with NDTV India in the evening prime time slot. NDTV India touched a peak of 0.4 in June 2004 whereas it touches a maximum of 0.25 in June 2005. AajTak, which touched a peak of 0.26 in June 2004, touched a high of 0.4 in June 2005.
   
   
2. Cumulative net reach for the channel in June 2004 was 71.62%, which goes up to 77% in June 2005. NDTV India delivered a cumulative net reach of 59% in June 2004 and it went up to 77% in June 2005.

Overall television viewership (Figure 6) takes a beating during this period and falls from a 1PM peak of 15.6 to 11 and a high of 23 to 17.44 at the 9PM slot. The drop in NEWS ratings is not so stark, reemphasizing the fact that the NEWS is a growing genre.