TV penetration rises to 66% in India, highest in 5 southern states: Survey

According to a survey conducted by joint industry body BARC, India now has 197 million TV homes, up from 183 million in 2016, The Economic Times has reported.

The Broadcast India (BI) Survey 2018 has shown that TV penetration in India has reached 66 percent as against 64 percent in the last survey.  The survey also shows that the number of individuals with access to TV has risen to 835 million, which is more than the reported population of Europe. However, smartphone penetration in the country is still an estimated 300 million.

The BI Survey also noted that the highest TV penetration – more than 90 percent—was in the five southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In contrast, states in northern India, like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, and states in the Northeast have much lower number of TV sets per household, bringing down the aggregate TV penetration to 66 percent. This also implies that 34 percent of households in India still do not own TVs.

On May 1, 2018, the Narendra Modi government had announced that six lakh villages in the country have achieved 100 percent electrification; and as per most surveys, once a household gets electricity, the first investment is a television set.

BARC carried out this survey between November 2017 and March 2018, covering 300 respondents across 4,400 towns. Besides TV ownership, the survey collects data on media consumption habits such as language preferences. BARC gauges this information to implement changes on its universe estimation.