Nepal Television news every night, Biswoghatana on Thursdays, and a movie watched by the whole family at 2 pm on Saturdays on Nepal TV. This must have been the scenario of every household during the 90s. Nepal Television started in 1985 and was the first Nepali TV channel and remained so for a few years. Switch to three decades later and we have a number of Nepali channels on television today. So how often does one watch Nepali TV channels and how often do we listen to the radio?
According to the audience media survey, Nepali TV channels are quite popular among the urban 16+ audiences where around 67% watch them on a daily basis. News and comedy serials are the most popular genres on Nepali TV channels. Songs, call-in entertainment programs, and investigative shows are also quite popular. Among the programs themselves, Kantipur TV news and Nepal TV news slots are popular while sitcoms such as Bhadragol, Meri Bassai, and Tito Satya are also popular. Investigative journalism and talk shows such as “Khabar Bhitra ko Khabar” and “Sajha Sawal” are also popular. Call Kantipur also features among the top 10 popular views among the 16+ urban TV audiences.
Among the various channels, Nepal TV and Kantipur TV have high viewership followed by Avenues Television, Image Channel, Sagarmatha Television, TV Filmy, and News 24. Nepali TV channel’s viewership peaks between ages 35-39 and declines with the younger audiences.
And what about the radio? Are we glued to the radio as much as we are to the television? We all love a good song on the radio; whether it’s while driving alone in the car or sitting among other passengers in a bus or microvan. So how much does the urban Nepali population listen to the radio?
According to the survey, over half of the urban 16+ audiences rarely listen to the radio while 37% are daily listeners. Comparatively, urban audiences of the Central region and the Far-western region listen to the radio more regularly than other urban clusters. Radio listenership peaks at those below the age of 24 and lessens below age 25 to 39.
Listeners on the radio mostly prefer listening to the news and songs. Lok (Folk) songs, social/political programs, and song-requesting programs are also quite popular. There are some mentions of Nepali drama shows like “Dear Kalyan” and “Saathi Sanga Manka Kura” also.
The most popular radio channels among the 16 above age population are the regional/ local channels followed by Kantipur FM, Image FM, BBC World Network 103, Ujyaalo 90 Network, and Radio Nepal with a large audience base across the urban areas of Nepal.
In conclusion, we can say that amongst the urban 16+audiences, Nepali TV channel viewership is quite high compared to the radio listenership. News along with comedy serials on TV and songs on the radio seems to be the genre of preference. Further, while the full-time students are the ones who view Nepali TV channels the least on a day-to-day basis, they are among the active daily radio listeners. So…do we still watch Nepali TV channels with the same fervor that as a 10-year-old child we experienced while watching the ending part of the “Bishwoghatana” program? (The ending of Bishwoghatana was really exciting as they showed interesting things like cool inventions and so on) Probably not! But do we still switch on Nepali TV channels to catch the occasional news and other shows, indeed we do.
The audience media survey was conducted among 16+ aged urban audiences to find out the popularity of Nepali TV Channels and radio stations. The survey was spread across 5 development regions in 28 cities within 35 urban locations selected through systematic random sampling.
