The year 2020 was subdued for television advertising, leading to a decline in total ad volumes across the year despite the record stay-at-home rise in viewership. But 2021 has bounced back with a substantial double-digit spike, delivering an all-time high of 1824 million seconds of ad volumes during the year, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India said Monday.

This growth translated into a 22 percent and 18 percent growth over 2020 and 2019, respectively. The Top 10 advertisers accounted for 780 million seconds of ad volumes, and the next 40 accounted for 340 million seconds, according to BARC’s ‘THINK Report, 2021– A Voluminous Year’.

FMCG brands continued to lead in share across categories and Hindi channels dominated across languages, BARC India said in a statement.

New advertisers and brands consistently jumped in throughout the year, thus playing an important role in the advertising volume growth witnessed throughout 2021.

Commenting on BARC India’s latest analysis of television advertising trends for 2021, Aaditya Pathak, Head-Client Partnership & Revenue Function, BARC India, said, “2021 certainly brought in much needed cheer to the broadcast industry. The year started off on a positive note and also ended on a high with the festive quarter.

“Year on year, despite pandemic impediments, television has repeatedly proved effective for every penny spent for advertisers and brands. 2021 saw over 9000 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.”

TV had a total of 9,239 advertisers and 14,616 brands advertised on the medium in 2021, of which, 49 percent or 4,483, were either new advertisers or returning ones. Similarly, for brands, 51 percent or 7,470 were new or returning brands.

The FMCG category continued to lead with an enormous share of 1,117 million seconds of ad volumes in 2021, followed by Ecommerce with 185 million seconds and Building, Industrial, & Land Materials/Equipments with 60 million seconds.

Television also understandably 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 percent were new entrants or earlier advertisers returning to TV in 2021, registering a growth of 51 percent over 2020 and 26 percent over 2019. Media/Entertainment/Social Media, Education, Online Shopping, Matrimonials and Financial Services were the top five sub-categories within Ecommerce. Ad volumes for Education grew by 461 percent and Financial Services by 153 percent over 2020.

While Hindi continues to play a dominant part of the language mix, regional language channels recorded strong growth as well across 2021. Ad Volumes for Bhojpuri language channels doubled over 2019 and Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati and Assamese language channels posted over 40 percent growth over 2019. South language channels like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada grew by 26 percent over 2020.

2021 Quarterly Analysis: Q1 2021 kickstarted on a positive note having registered 24 percent growth over 2020 and 21 percent growth over 2019.

Despite the sporadic and partial lockdowns on account of the second wave of COVID-19, ad volumes for Q2-21 were relatively higher at 417 million seconds as compared to Q2-19, which recorded 399 million seconds.

Q4-21 brought in cheer for broadcasters with a bumper festive season that recorded 489 million seconds of ad volumes, the highest quarter ever. New advertisers continued to flock to television for effective communication with Q4-21, welcoming 2156 new advertisers or earlier ones returning to the medium, the highest for the year.

After a marginal decline in Q2 2021 on account of the lockdowns, regional language channels experienced steady growth in Q3 and Q4.

SD & HD Channels: Ad volumes for HD channels in 2021 grew by 11 percent over the previous year and SD channels grew by 22 percent in 2021 over 2020 and by 20 percent over 2019.

TV Commercials: With an average commercial duration of under 30 seconds, TVCs were most favoured by advertisers, while spots more than 60 seconds were least preferred.

The average commercial duration has been reducing Y-o-Y. The prime time band — 20:00 hours to 24:00 hours — enjoyed the maximum share of ad volumes at 27 percent. The share of ad volumes for the four time bands — 08:00 – 12:00 hrs, 12:00-16:00 hrs, 16:00-20:00 hrs and 20:00-24:00 hrs — continued to stay the same since 2019.

TV Commercials in local languages on regional channels are consistently increasing since 2019.

Sports: IPL 2021registered a total of 1680 thousand seconds of ad volumes with 119 advertisers and 228 brands in all. There were 59 new advertisers and 158 new brands for the season. The Top 10 advertisers for the season contributed 35 percent of the ad volumes.

With 466 thousand seconds, ad volumes for the Tokyo Olympics 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. Significantly, 31 percent of the ad volumes during the Tokyo Games featured Olympians.

BARC India is a statistical and measurement science company and is responsible for audience data.