 There has been unprecedented growth in news television viewership in fact usually news television contributes about five or six percent to the entire television viewership in our country and during the lockdown in some weeks it had gone up to even 20 percent averaged out about 70 percent so from five six percent to 17 percent is huge so overall you know it's natural because there's an uncertainty the whole world is fighting against against an unknown enemy people were concerned worried they needed to know more about what's happening in Indiana across the world so all these had resulted in this this kind of growth in TV news viewership and well also our network the TV9 network has done exceedingly well though I must be honest that when we went into the lockdown our focus was not really on viewership growth in fact that was not at all our focus the health of our all employees that was our primary concern our philosophy during this time was to act according to our identity as as the four tested I think that's what we focused on and the viewership growth has is just by product and yes we've grown we've grown tremendously we have regained our number one news network position across the country ahead of all other networks we already had leadership channels in the regional markets like Telugu and Kannada undisputed leaders and Marathi Gujarati also we've often been in the top but most heartening is the growth in TV9 Bharat Bush which is our national news Hindi news channel the market share during this the lockdown period of TV9 Bharat Bush has grown by more than 100 percent so that is the is the biggest growth in our network well in this highly competitive in the news genre when a channel grows by 100 percent in market share in about just five six weeks not one factor gives rise to success there are several factors first and foremost the dedication hard work and focus of the team despite corona the way the team has lived up to this occasion is unprecedented then I think renewed focus on news well despite being just a one year old channel over the last four or five weeks we have often set the agenda which was later on taken up by other very experienced news channels in the country so focus on news and we relaunched the channel somewhere around in February early March so it turned out to be just before the lockdown and the benefit of swelling viewership had accrued to us because of this new look new positioning completely new revamped prime time focus on news and we also had marketing activities across television channels and digital those weathered only two mediums which we could use so all this put together has resulted in such a growth in TV9 Bharat Bush viewership well corona is certainly a big challenge an unprecedented challenge the whole world is fighting against this unknown enemy but that's according to me is the beginning of the challenge post corona economic slowdown will hit the entire world as well as India now having said so I still remain an eternal optimist I think there are few things working in favor of us firstly India as a nation I think under the able guidance and leadership of our prime minister we have been able to contain the spreading of virus well enough so far I think we will continue to do so going forward and therefore we have a better chance to come back to track as far as economic activity is concerned much ahead of what's going to happen in US and Europe secondly but in terms of industry I think news television would be slightly better off media would be hit badly especially I think newspapers and general entertainment channels they will take some time till the time the vaccine comes up the uncertainty would remain in the world and therefore appetite for news would continue to be high so viewership would remain high and therefore a lot of advertisers would start relying on news television as an effective medium for advertising so there we would be slightly better off and I think finally at the company level this stupendous growth of TV 9 Bharat Barsh coupled with our leadership in the regional markets we are very hopeful that we would be able to deal with this economic downturn effectively in fact we had very aggressive expansion plan which was walked out before the coronavirus hit the world currently we are now going back to the drawing board and thinking about unfolding our expansion plan to the extent possible once the lockdown is lifted so let us all remain hopeful for once the world has one common enemy all of us are fighting against one unknown virus and therefore we will remain united and together we will overcome this challenge for sure let us remain hopeful