By Our Staff
The real war will happen next year with the general elections, as the combined (or perhaps not so in spirit) opposition taking on the ruling BJP. But ahead of that, in the run-up to the elections in the five states including the all-important Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assemblies, News18 India has launched a 360-degree media campaign to showcase its dominance in the Hindi news segment. And more importantly to take on Aaj Tak, leaders and among the earliest entrants in the India private news television space.
The Hindi news channel released a page one ad in all editions of Economic Times to showcase its leadership in the genre. According to a communique which doesn’t quote any spokesperson, the campaign will also go live on digital and social media, with extensive visibility on trade media as well.
As per the ad, the TV data shows that Aaj Tak has captured 0.8 crore lesser AMAs in Week 32 of 2023. Now we don’t know if BARC is fine with use of just one week’s dominance in advertising material, but we leave that to the wisdom of the measurement body and the association of news broadcasters which includes members of a large number of news channels, including Aaj Tak and News18.
On the digital front, the ad says that News18 India received more video views on Facebook compared to Aaj Tak in July. (Source: Crowdtangle, July, 2023). Moreover, News18 India was also ahead of Aaj Tak by 12% in terms of YouTube views last month. (Source: Databeings, Video Views, Stats as of August 5 for all videos uploaded in July, 2023)
We are certain we haven’t heard the last on this war of words and claims, but, as long as the viewer benefits and the broadcasters don’t lose on revenues in the tu-tu-main-main skirmish, we aren’t really complaining.