NEW DELHI: The public service broadcaster doesn't want to be outdone by a satellite channel where cricket is concerned. It is taking on everybody and asserts that the India-Pakistan match received a very high TRP on its network.
Even the railway and union budget telecasts on DD in all homes and NCS India surveyed region have featured in the Top 100 list.
No matter whether the initial matches of the World Cup failed to dislodge popular soaps from the TV toppers charts, but the mother of all contests - the India Pakistan showdown on March 1 - was successful in putting cricket on top of the Tops. The match, shown live on DD National (as also SET MAX) was a big hit across cities and towns, delivering a high TRP of 15.37 in all TV Homes and 21.78 in cable & satellite homes, according to TAM data.
In absolute numbers, approximately 19 million people watched the India-Pakistan encounter on DD National as compared to 16.2 million people on SET MAX, Prasar Bharati said today.
Cricket was such a hit during the week that, the live telecast of the game and other cricket related programmes occupied all the Top 10 spots for the week ending 1 March 2003.
Although most people watched the cricket match in full
on DD , there were more audience watching when India was batting (15.5 million people). Another 3.5 million people joined in towards the end to see Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Dravid wrap up the match . Approximately 13.2 million people savoured the elegant century of Saeed Anwar during Pakistani innings.
Amongst cricket related programmes Hero Honda Great
Saves on DD National came fourth with a TRP of 11.79. This was followed by Extraaa Innings on SET Max (11.46), LG Master Blaster on DD National (11.26), Bajaj Boxer Total Knock Out (SET - 11.05), Pepsi Best Wickets on DD National (10.94) and BSNL Best Catches on DD (10.49).
Doordarshan serial, Aankhe, otherwise a Top 5 programme, was placed at No. 14. STAR Plus soap, Kahani Ghar Ghar Kii was at No.38 in all TV homes. Surprisingly, the Railway budget programme on 26 February 2003 between 9:49 pm and 10:11 pm got a TVR of 5.03 (all homes) - higher than that of the union Budget placed at 4.09 on 28 February 2003 (9:08 pm to 9:44 pm).
Guess which city gave the highest TRPs? None, but Kolkata, the home town of Maharaja Ganguly.Kolkata watched the India- Pakistan encounter most passionately delivering a high TRP of 32.3 in all TV homes and 30.4 in Cable & Satellite homes. It was closely followed by Mumbai (30.9), Hyderabad (25.6), Bangalore (21.1), Delhi (16.3) and Chennai (14.0).
There was a 24 per cent jump in the total time spent on TV viewing, with the advertisers becoming successful in reaching "difficult to reach" male audience. The TAM- S research shows that the time spent to TV viewing increases with the number of India matches.
The advertisers - Pepsi, BSNL, Reliance India Mobile,
Pepsodent, Maruti Suzuki, LG and Philips - are all smiles, with the kind of exposure cricket has given to their products. With our men in blue doing something new, things can get only better and better.
Doordarshan which is bringing the World Cup in
association with Nimbus, is expecting to earn a net revenue of approximately Rs 200 million.