NDTV tops viewership during election coverage

Elections 2009 were perhaps more keenly tracked by an increasingly aware Indian voter than ever before. Much of that tracking, from announcement of elections to counting day, was done on television.

With an aim to understand the viewership pattern better and gauge the channel's performance during the coverage of  the Lok Sabha elections, NDTV asked GfK-Mode to conduct a survey of the top 13 cities across the country.

The viewership figures that emerged from a large sample size of 5240 placed NDTV right at the top with a huge margin. NDTV India, when compared to its close competitors, came second among the most watched Hindi news channels.

Here's a summary of the findings:

Which of the English news channels did you watch the most during the election results coverage?

CNN IBN       23%

NDTV 24x7   53%

Times Now     12%

Headlines Today        7%

Doordarshan 5%

Which English channel gave the best quality coverage?

CNN IBN    22%

NDTV 24x7  54%

Times Now  13%

Headlines Today 7%

Doordarshan 5%

Which Hindi news channel did you watch the most?

Aaj Tak 37%

NDTV India 22%

IBN7 4%

Star News 12%

Zee News  7%

India TV  5%

Doordarshan 12%

IBN7 4%

Star News 13%

Zee News 7%

India TV 5%

Doordarshan 12%

These viewership figures are in many ways more accurate than TAM ratings, which can easily be fiddled with and have increasingly become synonymous with corruption and money power.

The survey was conducted across 13 cities namely; Delhi , Lucknow,  Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Cochin, Madurai, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar and Patna.