With 1.8 million seconds, television advertising volumes grow 22% in 2021, says BARC report

TV ad volumes recorded a strong bounce back in 2021 as advertisers and brands came back to the medium in big numbers due to pickup in economic activity, as per the latest report by BARC India.
The ad volumes on TV jumped 22% compared to 2020 and 18% compared to 2019.

The report highlighted that 2020 was a subdued year for television advertising, leading to a decline in total ad volumes across the year despite the record stay-at-home rise in viewership.

Overall, TV ad volumes touch an all-time high of 1.82 billion seconds in 2021. The top 10 advertisers accounted for 780 million seconds of ad volumes, while the next 40 accounted for 340 million seconds.

The report, 2021 – A Voluminous Year (Yearly Ad Volume Report 2021), also noted that FMCG brands continued to lead in share across categories and Hindi channels continued to dominate across languages.

“2021 certainly brought in much needed cheer to the broadcast industry,” said Aaditya Pathak, Head – Client Partnership & Revenue Function, BARC India. “The year started off on a positive note and also ended on a high with the festive quarter.”

He added that year on year, despite pandemic impediments, television has repeatedly proved effective for every penny spent for advertisers and brands.

“2021 saw over 9,000 advertisers turn to television with a significant number of new entrants. Overall, 2021 was a positive year for the industry as a whole that witnessed growing value for both advertisers and broadcasters,” Pathak said.

In all, 9,239 advertisers and 14,616 brands advertised on the medium in 2021, of which 4483 (49%) were either new advertisers or returning after 2019.

Similarly, for brands, 51% (7470) were new or returning brands.

Among the categories, the FMCG category continued to lead with a large share – 1.12 billion seconds of ad volumes in 2021, followed by ecommerce with 185 million seconds and Building, Industrial, & Land Materials/ Equipment with 60 million seconds.

Television also continued to be an important medium for the corporate brand image category, which registered 2X growth over 2019 with 24 million seconds.

The ecommerce category had a total of 587 advertisers in 2021 of which 65% were new entrants or earlier advertisers returning to TV in 2021, registering a growth of 51% over 2020 and 26% over 2019.

Media/entertainment/social media, education, online shopping, matrimonial and financial services were the top 5 sub-categories within Ecommerce.

Ad volumes for education grew by 461%, while for financial services, it was up 153% over 2020.

The report also pointed out that ad volumes for HD channels in 2021 grew by 11% over the previous year, while for SD channels it grew by 22% in 2021.

On the Indian Premier League (IPL), the report finds that the cash-rich tournament registered a total of 1,680 thousand seconds of ad volumes with 119 advertisers and 228 brands. There were 59 new advertisers and 158 new brands for the season.

Incidentally, the top 10 advertisers for the season contributed 35% of the ad volumes.

Similarly, for the Tokyo Olympics, with 466 thousand seconds, ad volumes for the games were almost at par with the Rio Olympics that was held in 2016.

There were 34 advertisers and 61 brands that advertised during the Tokyo Olympics.