June 4, 2024, had most of India glued to screens as the nation watched the results of Counting Day in what is the largest general election in the world. While political parties tracked and tallied their wins and losses, news media organizations across the board saw unprecedented massive participation from viewers engaged in the edge-of-the-seat political action playing out. From the exit polls to counting day, the clashes between parties led by PM Narendra Modi’s BJP and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress, had everyone hooked, a scenario that would have played out very differently had the election lacked the uncertainty.
While they still managed to achieve the majority mark, the ruling National Democratic Alliance coalition ended up with a much lower number of seats than what the exit polls had suggested. “This unexpected development is bringing a lot of audience to the news,” said a top FMCG advertiser.
Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO at InMobi Group (InMobi, Glance, Roposo), shared on social media, “Yesterday, we witnessed the grandest democratic spectacle the world has ever seen, a testament to the power of democracy and the intelligence of Indian voters. We expressed our pride, our hope, and our dreams, with every single vote. No political pundit or exit poll could predict how India voted because the Indian voter is too smart to be stereotyped and too diligent to simply follow the herd.” In January 2024, the state of Uttar Pradesh awarded the inaugural UP Gaurav Samman, its highest civilian honour, to Tewari, founder and CEO, InMobi Group. The award was presented to Tewari by Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath.
The political drama is likely to go on for a while as the government’s formation begins, attracting even more eyeballs and attention. This spells good news for the nation’s news channels that provide a front-row seat to all the action. Advertisers that Storyboard18 spoke to say it is a genre with a major aggregation of viewership due to high participation and interest from people and advertisers recognise this. Hence branded segments, advertising and product placement in news coverage are now seen across channels.
“One positive side for the TV news is that, since the last few months a lot of TV news audience had shifted to social media. But these new developments, where you want latest news, latest discussions and debates, again this audience is coming back to TV news. Naturally, this is a better time for advertisers to flock to TV news for eyeballs,” said RS Sodhi, president of Indian Dairy Association (IDA) and former Amul MD.
The World Cup is there but it is not being watched, so TV news has become the favourite for everybody for analysis and discussions, Sodhi added.
“Democracy in India is all about massive participation and real on ground involvement. The numbers here are unparalleled anywhere in the world. Naturally, the news media has a major role in communicating the results,” said Shubhranshu Singh, VP and CMO of Tata Motors CVBU.
He added, “We must celebrate the mass interest in elections per se and result day in particular.”
Going ahead, Singh expects that regional media will also see an uptrend as there are many assembly elections in the near to mid term future. Social media platforms and digital options, especially YouTube, have become a thriving ecosystem almost parallel to what’s happening in linear TV news. All this gives advertisers a means to reach people in a high involvement, high engagement context.