Television viewership has chalked up to its personal best during Covid-19. With work from home and online classes becoming a new normal, families have found pleasure in watching their favourite shows and movies together.
Television has taken a centre stage for family bonding and rate of watching shows on separate screen has gone down drastically. The re-launch of age-old golden era shows made it even more enticing.
Despite no new episodes or shows coming in, the viewers remained hooked to the idiot box, revisiting their past glory. Re-run of 90’s shows like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Shah Rukh Khan’s Circus and Byomkesh Bakshi drew even larger audience.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India also pulled the biggest ever Indian Premiere League, though delayed, this year in terms of viewership, engagement and ad sales.
It set a viewership record with an overall consumption increase of 23 per cent versus 2019. Television viewership reached an outstanding 31.57mollions.
Nevertheless, the sale of traditional televisions dropped to a nasty low amid Covid-19. The market flourished with the sale of Smart TVs with engaging comfort.
There were more than 17,000 televisions sold in eight months of pandemic and 12,000 of them were Smart TVs. People preferred online shopping over the market.
Narendra Hashwani, an electronic dealer near Hamidia in Bhopal, told Free Press that the sale of traditional television dropped to 40% in Madhya Pradesh this year and to about 20% across the country. Smart TVs, however, were prudent for business, he added. He said there was a decent demand of television during the lockdown period as well. He got many calls to order a television indicating a considerable return of the idiot box era, he said.
