How Regional TV Channels are the Buzzword Today

If BARC data for 2019 is to be believed, the viewership for Hindi TV channels have only increased by 9% but Bhojpuri TV channels witnessed an increase in the viewership by 171% followed by Gujarati TV channels at 100%, Marathi by 72%, and Bangla by 39%. Need we say more?

Regional channels are buzzword in the television industry today and are much more popular than their national counterparts. This clearly indicates that Indian audiences have taken the concept of content consumption in their native language seriously and religiously in a big way.

Language bind people of a certain area like nothing and plays a key role in keeping people united and bond over same cultural values. Regional channels have played a paramount role in television industry in India since South India is a bigger market and penetrating that was what worked for most leading TV channels.

Shunning the decade old ‘dub and broadcast policy’, regional channels understood that there’s much more to offer the audiences than just the dubbed TV soaps. People down UP, South India, Maharashtra, Bihar, and more want to have a bundle of wholesome entertainment that packs TV soaps, reality TV shows, news channels, documentaries, and more. Moreover, the demand for music and movies TV channels exclusively in a regional language also fuelled the growth of TV channels.

The rising power of Indian regional channels market after 2015 pushed leading media players like Star Network to go ahead and launch a bouquet of regional TV channels down south. Star Network penetrated the Southern market after acquiring Maa TV Network and marked their footprint by thus increasing the pie share of regional TV channels.

This was followed closely by other leading TV channels like Colors who went ahead with launching their Kannada channel and eventually went forward with broadcasting their HD TV channels too in many regional languages. This started of a sudden wave in the country with small time players also jumping on to the bandwagon by launching more area-specific TV channels like in Haryana, Punjab, Orissa, and more.

While TV soaps have earlier been of importance too, it’s the advent of regional news channels and reality shows in regional languages that contributed a lot in the rise of number of regional channels and their viewership. With advertisers kicking in at just the right moment, seems like the profitability proposition of regional TV channels is there to stay and so does the demand of the regional content. So much so, that some leading OTT platforms like Watcho went ahead and launch a full-fledged media library of Kannada web series, Tamil and Telugu short films, South Indian movies, regional news channels, and much more.