Contesting the Hoot's Network18 analysis

BY ANAND RANGASWAMI| IN Media Business | 16/06/2015

The data published in The Hoot on the performance of CNBC TV18 after the Reliance takeover was selective and therefore misleading.

Says ANAND RANGASWAMI

I chanced upon an article published in The Hoot that seeks to analyse the performance of various Network18 channels before and after they were taken over by Reliance. Considering that I have a show on CNBC TV18, I thought I’d take a look.

In a few minutes, I was aghast. If this had been an article in the trade media or formed the basis of ads by channels whose data features in the graphs, it would have been normal and I would have ignored it. But this was in The Hoot and is written by an eminent, mainstream media journalist.

I looked at data only for CNBC TV18. The first thing that caught my eye was the target audience and target markets. While vested interests will slice and dice data, I expect an impartial observer or commentator to take the most obvious figure: the All-India figure.

Next, weirdly, when there is an attempt to compare year-on-Y, eight weeks of April-May 2014 are compared with four weeks of May 2015 - two different time durations. That’s a no-no. So correct the figures to All India, compare eight weeks to eight weeks and this is what the figures look like:

In the analysis they have considered the market as 1 mn+ and not all India. Below are the market share nos. in all India as per TAM.

	8 weeks	8 weeks	8 weeks	4 weeks
Channel	Pre (06th Apr'14 to 31st May'14)	Post (01st Jun'14 to 26th Jul'14)	Latest (05th Apr to 30th May'15)	Latest (03rd May to 30th May'15)
CNBC TV18	40%	49%	54%	52%
ET Now	37%	34%	22%	21%
NDTV Profit + Prime	19%	13%	16%	19%
Bloomberg TV	5%	4%	8%	9%

Below are key highlights and the numbers for the English Business News channels as per BARC.

As per BARC, CNBC TV18 leads in all India with a 49% market share followed by ET Now with 36% amongst NCCS AB Males 25+ audiences.
In all India 1 mn+, ET Now leads with a 43% share however in 1 Mn+ within this too they lead only in the 6 megacities with a 47% share and CNBC TV18 leads in 1 mn+ excluding metros with 47% followed by ET Now at #2 with 37%.
Even in 1 mn+ including the megacities, ET Now leads only amongst NCCS B Males 25+ audiences with a 80% share and is #2 amongst NCCS A 25+ Male audiences with 32% share where CNBC TV18 leads with a 50% share.

BARC measures viewership by the newly introduced New Consumer Classification System (NCCS), which allows brand managers to plan based on ownership of consumer durables. NCCS A and NCCS B are the top demographics based on consumer durable ownership, which is what advertisers on business channels hold most valuable and relevant.

If we look at BARC data for NCCS A, B and for AB for Males 25+, this is what the numbers now look like, with CNBC TV18 the clear market leader.

Market	Channel	(23rd May'15 to 29th May'15) in NCCS AB Males 25+	(23rd May'15 to 29th May'15) in NCCS A Males 25+	(23rd May'15 to 29th May'15) in NCCS B Males 25+
All India	CNBC TV18	49%	50%	46%
	ET Now	36%	32%	42%
	NDTV Profit + Prime	11%	12%	9%
	Bloomberg TV	5%	6%	3%
All India 1mn+ incl metros	CNBC TV18	40%	50%	5%
	ET Now	43%	32%	80%
	NDTV Profit + Prime	11%	12%	8%
	Bloomberg TV	6%	6%	7%
All India 1mn+ excl. metros	CNBC TV18	47%	69%	2%
	ET Now	37%	8%	95%
	NDTV Profit + Prime	13%	18%	3%
	Bloomberg TV	3%	5%	0%
6 metros	CNBC TV18	36%	40%	10%
	ET Now	47%	45%	58%
	NDTV Profit + Prime	9%	9%	14%
	Bloomberg TV	8%	7%	18%

I have sliced and diced the data in almost every possible way for the NCCS AB M25+ - which many planners will do based on their clients’ demands. But in an analysis by a neutral commentator, the only figure I would expect to have seen was the All-India figure.

(Anant Rangaswami is Editor, Storyboard on CNBC TV18 and author of ‘The Elephants in the room – the future of Advertising in India’).