Republic, Times Now Account For More Than 80 Per Cent Of English News Market— Mere Coincidence?

English television news is now a two-horse race between Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV and his former employer, Times Now, according to BARC data released today. While Republic lost market share compared to last week (48.7 per cent this week, compared to 51.8 per cent last week), Times Now raised its share from 24.5 per cent to 30.3 per cent this week. Combined, the two control almost 80 per cent of the english news market in the country.

A distant third is CNN News18 with 6.93 per cent share, followed by India Today (6.8 per cent) and NDTV (5.2 per cent).

Just last week, after the data was released, prominent English news channels, who were members of the National Broadcasting Association (NBA) pulled out of BARC.

Arnab Goswami’s Super Prime Time dominated the 9 pm – 11 pm market, with 61 per cent market share, while Times Now was a distant second with only 25 per cent market share.

Republic TV and Times Now have effectively left the other news channels gasping for space in the market, as a glance at the data from week 19 and 20 reveals. Interestingly, both these television news channels have similar stands on most issues of national debate. Clearly, the fact that they account for more than 80 per cent of the market share says something about the preferences of the viewers.

The spike in English news TV viewership that was experienced on Week 19 (6 May 2017 to 12 May 2017) has softened however, with Republic, the market leader's impressions reducing from 2117 to 1703 on Week 20 (13 May 2017 to 19 May 2017).