There is ongoing war between Pawan Kalyan and a few media channels. As everyone knows it all started with Pawan Kalyan accusing a few channels colluding with ruling TDP party after Sri Reddy using cuss word against his mother. There has been curiousity among political and media circles to see whether Pawan Kalyan call to boycott these media channels has really any impact. Since Pawan Kalyan gave call on 20th April, it is almost 3 weeks now and we have already seen that as per last week ratings still TV9 rules the roost. (https://www.telugu360.com/telugu-news-channels-latest-trp-ratings/) . Now latest data has been released and even though still TV9 is occupying the top slot, there has been considerable drop in the overall viewership of TV9. Before getting into the details of this let us first demystify what this TRP is all about.

An impression is when an ad is fetched from its source, and is countable. In other words, an impression is the display of an ad to a user. Usually these impressions are counted in 1000s. Advertisement cost is usually charged as cost per thousand impressions. For e.g. TV9 in week 18 (Apr 28 to May 04) has 32885 thousand impressions (i.e. 3.288 crore impressions) while it has 42690 thousand impressions in week 16 (Apr 14 t Apr 20). That means, there is 22% drop in the impressions of TV9 from Week 16 to week 18. That means if 100 people watched an ad in TV9 in week 16, in week 18 it reached only 78 people. But this doesn’t mean 22% drop in ad revenue because there will be several adjustments, modifications and negotiations between marketing teams of these channels and the agencies that bring ads .

TRPs are calculated using the denominator as the total target audience, and the numerator as the total impressions delivered to this audience x 100.

TRP = ( impressions / total target audience) *100
For e.g. If total target audience for these channels is taken as 7 crores,
TV9 TRP in Week 16 = (4,29,60,000) / 7,00,00,000 ) *100 = 60
TV9 TRP in Week 17 = (3,66,02,000) / 7,00,00,000 ) *100 = 51
TV9 TRP in Week 18 = (3,28,85,000/ 7,00,00,000) * 100 = 45

Are these TRPs published and available for common people?

No. Calculated TRPs are distributed to seeking agencies (like advertising agencies) and TV channels. What is available in public domain is just the number of impressions of only top 5 channels across the genres. But it is to be noted that these number of impressions are directly proportional to TRP ratings of the channels. Common people can calculate themselves to get approximate TRP ratings based on the impressions.

Weekly data of news channels in last 3 weeks:

So what we can infer from above data? Obviously, TV9 viewership is in downward trend while remaining channels maintained approximately steady trend

Percentage change from Week 16th to week 18th

It is clear that TV9’s viewership is down by 22.97% in last 3 weeks approximately. Also, other channels also seen dip in viewership in last 3 weeks but their dip in viewership is much less compared to TV9’s dip in viewership.

Comparison between Telugu Top entertainment channels and Top News channels

It is interesting to see the huge gap between entertainment channels and news channels. Top entertainment channel in Telugu is MAA with 4,49,474 thousand impressions where as top news channel TV9 has 32885 thousand impressions. That means top news channels impressions is not even 10 % of top entertainment channels impressions. This is the reason, ad cost in entertainment channel being much higher than that in news channel.

How much of this could be attributed to Pawan Kalyan effect

Obviously fans of Janasena want to believe that this dip in Tv9 is because of Pawan Kalyan as he made wildest allegations on this channel and asked his followers to boycott this channel. On the other hand, people who want to believe Pawan Kalyan’s call has no impact at all attribute this dip in viewership to the lack of any breaking news during this period. There is truth in both of these arguments and it is really difficult to conclude which argument is ‘more’ correct.

It is also to be noted that TV9 has Record TRP of 92 during the week of Sridevi death. compared to that 92, current rating of approximately 45 is much less. but you have to note that when there is a breaking news like Sridevi death mystery, Jayalalitha death mystery, beautician Sirisha mystery Tollywood drug case, there is the general upsurge in the viewership of news channels. Lack of such breaking news also might be reason for the drop in viewership, says some. But it is to be noted here that Channels other than TV9 have almost maintained a steady trend with no significant drop. So here comes the argument that this could be because of Pawan Kalyan effect. It is obvious that he has so many fans in Telugu States. If only certain percentage of his fans have completely blocked this TV9 channel, there must be drop in viewership at least to that extent.

Now if we combine both the facts that a section of people have completely stopped viewing TV9 and the lack of breaking news – we get the answer. Not one of these reasons but the combined effect of these 2 reasons might be the reason for the dip We will have to wait and see how long this trend will continue.

-ZURAN

Of late, there has been lot of discussion among Telugu people about the coverage given by TV9 on various issues. Some are making scathing comments on TV9 about their biasedness in coverage of issues, some are questioning the “Character assassination done by Telugu media (read it TV9)” on the persons involved in the issues and a few more accusing TV9 for violating privacy of the persons involved in various issues. However, digging into issue further reveals truths, justifying TV9’s coverage.

TV9 editor expressed their way of handling the woman issues without violating the privacy of the persons involved in the issue. TV9 Editor added, they have aired stories where daughters-in-law were being harassed for dowry or burnt for dowry or for “not giving birth to a male child” etc. In all such cases, they did enter into their premises but did not face any resistance from the accused or victims and so they had not transgressed anyone’s private spaces. TV9 editor mentioned the stories they aired where they exposed the tricks of several cheating babas and holy godmen and also explained their path is full of thorns as they face attacks in social media by riff-raff elements, physical threats , communal, casteist, politically motivated attacks everyday.

The specific issue where TV9 has exposed extra-marital affair of a top cop has driven extra scrutiny. However, the key point that needs to be raised is whether top cops can set bad precedents like these. Just to refresh memory, FIR filed by husband states – his wife and her lover, both are policemen, cheated him. While TV9 stood by the husband, some people questioned TV9 the way it handled the issue and the stand they taken. Husband and his mom approached TV9 as this issue has public interest because cheating wife is a dynamic lady police officer. However, lady officer’s version is TV9 is encroaching her private space. However, the lady officer ignores the fact that she is having an extra marital affair with another person in the same department. TV9 also justified ushering camera in their bedroom to expose the facts. The lady police officer was given a chance to explain her version but she chose not to do so, hiding somewhere in response to the verbal advice of her paramour and she did not even respond to many messages from TV9 channel to give her version. TV9 justified all the coverage by proving weak husband was visibly terrified by the cops as they threatened to shoot him dead in an “encounter”.

Finally, TV9 editor mentions about the aversion of some people for Telugu channels makes them so blind as to dare to attribute anything to the channels and make blatantly false allegations.

Probably, for the first time in Indian television industry’s history, viewers have launched a campaign against TV 9 for what they call “scandalous coverage” of news and events. According to a message making rounds on WhatsApp, a campaign has been launched to boycott TV 9 for its ‘scurrilous reporting and dividing people on the basis of religion and caste and creating an unhealthy atmosphere among the people through its various programmes.’

Sent in Telugu, the long message has listed a number of instances and cases in which people who got influenced by what they had seen on TV 9 entered into heated arguments and broke their relationship. And, in some cases, they came to blows; in families, some TV 9 programmes had led to feuds, the message has alleged.

Further, it said dozens of cases have been filed against the channel for defaming people, insulting organisations, telecasting canards about venerable and respected personalities and blackmail. “It’s not journalism; fake and false news peddled as true stories,” the message said. It wanted the recipients to join the mail chain to reach out to millions of Telugu’s in campaign against TV 9.

For many TV 9 fans, it is the only Telugu channel that exposes the ‘truth’ and calls a spade a spade, though not all will agree with that view. Sensationalism and hype are considered to be the channel’s forte. TV 9 uses both to maximum advantage to increase its TRP ratings, say many viewers. In the same breath, they stress that if some don’t want to watch the channel, let them switch over to other channels. Why a campaign when every TV channel in the country has a licence to operate and beam whatever it wants within the boundaries of law?