TV the best way to reach rural areas: IMRB
MUMBAI: While the world continues to hail India’s rapid rise as the second largest and fastest growing smartphone market globally, advertisers to the rural market may continue to rely on an age-old medium: television.
According to market research firm Kantar IMRB, the television set continues to be the dominant information medium for the rural consumer, even though mobile phones are growing at a rapid rate in India, with 5.2% growth in 2016 (according to the International Data Corporation).
In a report titled STAR 2017, focused on data from rural Indian markets, Kantar IMRB said it found that 59% of all rural consumers surveyed watched television in the week before the survey, even though penetration of mobile phones among these consumers is high. The report found that 79% of rural consumers now own a mobile phone, including 79% of those living in towns/villages with a population of 2,000-5,000.
The penetration of mobile phones is highest in the north and south of the country, at 80%, while 78% consumers in the east and 75% in the west reported owning a mobile phone. But television remains the dominant advertising medium. Kantar IMRB found that only 22% of rural consumers surveyed read a newspaper or a magazine in the four weeks or seven days preceding the survey. And only 4% of consumers polled said they listened to the radio in the week preceding the survey.
This is in line with data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India. It collects data on TV viewership and the top advertisers on television across languages and genres, in both rural and urban India.
According to Barc’s Broadcast India Survey 2016, the number of television households in rural India is 18% more than in urban India, up from a 50-50 split between the two regions the previous year. Close to 46% of urban Indian homes—84 million— have a television while there are 99 million rural television households, which is about 54% of all homes.
More rural homes watch television than urban ones do. There are a total of 183 million television homes in India, up 19% from 154 million the previous year.
What’s the secret to rural India’s television addiction?
“TV viewing still remains a collective activity in the rural family,” said Alpana Parida, managing director of brand consultancy DY Works. “There is time allocated for the television in the rural home. Besides, even in our rural study (Emerging Rural Consumer Behaviours), we found that there is a flat-screen TV in rural homes,” she added.
Television channels are also keeping rural viewers hooked by focusing on new content and providing popular shows to them for free. “Star, Zee and others have started airing their old programmes for free, making them accessible to rural families,” Parida said.
Besides, these television channels have found an easy access to a large rural viewer base with free-to-air (FTA) channels using state broadcaster Doordarshan’s DD Free Dish—a direct-to-home satellite TV service which does not charge a monthly fee unlike private competitors like Tata Sky and Dish TV.
Meanwhile rural users still lag in the use of the internet—largely driven by smartphones. Data is still too expensive and too low in quality for a large number of rural consumers to shift to online viewing. Data from IMRB’s report also show very little laptop or personal computer usage in rural India, at 3% overall in 2016.