Ad volumes on TV continued to post a healthy growth, with the July-Sept quarter registering 461 million seconds of advertising, which is the highest this year, new data from BARC India said Thursday.

According to  July-Sept 2021 ad volumes — Special Festival Edition THINK Report— what was also significant was the growth registered in the quarter was broad-based, with channels across all languages reporting higher ad volumes over the corresponding period in previous years.

With the Indian festive season well and truly underway, the September THINK Report also takes a closer look at advertising on TV during the Ganesh Chaturthi week. Ad volumes on TV grew 4 percent, compared to the previous four-week average and posted a healthy 28 percent growth over 2019.

With 4,226 active advertisers and 3,397 active brands in the same month, there is a 29 percent growth over September 2019 and 26 percent growth over September 2020, said an official statement from BARC India (Broadcast Audience Research Council India).

“The momentum of more and more brands banking on television advertising continues to be visible with 3397 new brands entering the medium in the July-Sept quarter of 2021, and that too with a 51 percent share of total brands advertising,” said Aaditya Pathak, Head of Client Partnership & Revenue, BARC India.

“As we have seen in earlier years, marketers are clearly leveraging the reach and power of TV to raise the visibility of their brands this festive season. The strong growth of Ad Volumes in Q3 – which is 40mn seconds higher than in Q2 – also points to the positive sentiment regarding the improving economic and business environment,” Pathak added.

FMCG continued to maintain its leadership position with a 29 percent growth in ad volumes against the same period in 2019, while the e-commerce sector has also shown a healthy 26 percent jump over 2020.

While the strong upward trend in TV advertising is seen at the overall level as well as across all languages, the highest spurt was observed for Bhojpuri language channels, where ad volumes were more than double that of 2019, and 38 percent higher than in 2020.

While Hindi language channels account for the largest share of TV advertising, Tamil and Telugu language channels witnessed robust growth over the previous year, 2020.