3 Months After Arnab Goswami, How Do Times Now’s Ratings Look?

Arnab Goswami is busy preparing for the launch of ‘Republic.’ How have Times Now’s ratings shaped in the meantime?

On 14 November 2016, Arnab Goswami anchored ‘Newshour’ on Times Now for the last time; a prime-time show which had become synonymous with his distinctive style of anchoring. He had announced his resignation as the channel’s Editor-in-Chief earlier in the month.

At the time of his last show, Times Now was the top English news channel in India, clocking in 10,80,000 impressions in a week, according to publicly available BARC data.

Three months later, Goswami is busy preparing for the launch of his new media venture, ‘Republic’. But how have Times Now’s ratings shaped up after Goswami’s exit?

Crunching the Numbers: Still On Top, But The Peak Looks Different

Using BARC data on weekly impressions, The Quint mapped Times Now’s ratings along with three other channels: CNN News 18, NDTV 24x7 and India Today. Weekly impressions is defined as the ‘number of individuals of a target audience who viewed an event, averaged across minutes.’

Week 35 begins on 27 August 2016 and Week 6 ends on 10 February 2017. Arnab Goswami’s last show on Times Now was in mid-Week 46.

While there are several metrics which affect viewership numbers, the data broadly throws up three trends:

1. Times Now retains its top spot in the English news channel sector with a significant gap between it and other channels.
2. After Arnab Goswami’s exit, it appears that the gap between Times Now and its closest competitor has come down by about 20-30 percent.
3. During a big news event, viewership for all channels has shown a similar spike. However, the spike for Times Now is greater than other news channels (refer to Week 49). This could imply that viewers still go to Times Now for breaking news.
   For example, comparing the spike in Week 40 and Week 49, the peak for CNN News 18 is similar in volume. But, there is a huge difference in the peaks for Times Now between the two weeks.

The BARC figures quoted above are all-India figures from urban and rural areas. To put viewership numbers in to context, it is essential to understand that English news constitutes 0.2 percent of total TV viewership in India.

At the time of Arnab Goswami’s exit, Mallikarjun Das, Head of Starcom India, told The News Minute:

There is a particular tone and tenor in Times Now. And viewers with a particular worldview identify with it, and if that is maintained, they will stick to watching it. There is a certain amount of loyalty which comes with news viewing.

In 2017, Times Now’s market share has seen a small drop from 40 percent to 38 percent (BARC figures), reports Livemint.

What remains to be seen is will Times Now retain its pole position after the launch of Goswami’s new venture ‘Republic’? Or will Arnab Goswami dominate the prime-time slot across English news channels again?