Television news viewership in Hindi speaking markets during Operation Sindoor of the Indian armed forces was higher than the news audience traffic recorded during days around the 2016 surgical strike, the Broadcast Audience Research Council said on Monday.
The Hindi TV news share in the over 15 HSM (Hindi speaking market) increased to 15 percent during the week of Operation Sindoor from 4 percent recorded before the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, the BARC said.
This is "above the share it garnered during the surgical strikes in 2016," the body added.
Indian armed forces had on September 29, 2016 carried out cross-border surgical strikes on terrorists sites in Pakistan's Balakot in retaliation to the deadly terror attack at an Army base in Uri.
Days after 26 civilians were killed in a terror attack in Pahalgam, the Indian armed forces under Operation Sindoor on May 7 this year hit at least nine terrorist launch pads in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The latest data showing an increase in TV viewership comes even as concerns have been raised about the quality of the reportage during Operation Sindoor stemming from the veracity of reports and also style of presentation.
The BARC statement said weekly television news viewership reached the highest level at least since 2022, when it restarted computing the numbers on a weekly basis and 507 million viewers watched the news in the week to May 9.
News genre peaked and accounted for 16 per cent of TV viewership during the three critical days of May 7-9 as against the usual 6 per cent, the body said. -- PTI
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