Barc reports surge in viewership as 507 million tune in for news during Operation Sindoor
Television news emerged as a vital source of information with 507 million viewers watching news in the week of Operation Sindoor, India's cross-border counterstrike following the Pahalgam terror attack, according to data from the television monitoring agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc). Further, the news genre peaked and accounted for 16% of TV viewership during the three critical days of 7, 8 and 9 May 2025 as against the usual 6%.
The Hindi news genre clocked GRPs (Gross Rating Point, a key metric that measures the total exposure of an advertisement to a target audience) of 254, as compared to 235 during the Lok Sabha elections last year, 211 during the multiple state elections of 2022, 185 during the Ram temple consecration ceremony followed by Republic Day, and 178 during the Pahalgam terror attack, Barc added.
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Further, Hindi news also clocked the highest ATS (average time spent) of 60 minutes, an increase of 67% over the ATS of pre-Pahalgam weeks. The genre's share increased from 3% to 13% during the week. Daily tune-ins on Hindi news on critical days increased on the three critical days from 73 million to 142 million.
Hindi news viewers
Overall, 65 million new viewers (with respect to preceding weeks) tuned in to Hindi news. These new viewers had not sampled Hindi news in the last month, Barc added.
Besides, in the wake of Operation Sindoor, government fact-checking units swung into high alert to highlight and debunk misleading information on social and mainstream media, and set the record straight.
Their job multiplied as social media channels were flooded with unverified images of troop movements, doctored videos claiming to show missile launches, and misleading news about diplomatic escalations.
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The news category commanded nearly a fifth of overall TV viewership at the beginning of the covid lockdown, thanks to a lack of fresh entertainment content and viewers' hunger for pandemic-related information. However, it fell to nearly 4% as the economy opened up, before rising back to 7.1% before the general election last year. The Ram temple pran pratishtha, or consecration ceremony, and Lok Sabha polling day, among others, were seen as tentpole events that led to a jump in viewership compared to a regular day, recently.
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