MUMBAI:"Mr Boombastic! Simply Fantastic!" That could well be the song
that the guys at Star Plus are playing after what it says has been a record breaking week for the channel.
And these numbers have been achieved at a time when both Sony Entertainment Television and the Zee Network have brought in some high profile programming - the Madhuri marriage show Kahi Na Kahi Koi Hai on SET and motormouth Shekhar Suman's new talk show on Zee TV Simply Shekhar. Neither have been able to make inroads into the Star show.
Quoting market research agency AC Nielsen's TAM ratings covering cable and satellite homes in the nine main cities for the week 28 July to 3 August:
Star Plus made a clean sweep of the Top 20 and 43 of its shows were in the Top 50.
Its 24-hour channel shares touched an all time high of 15.
Its all week prime time shares (8 pm - 11:30 pm) touched an all time high of 26. Delhi recorded 45, Kanpur 46 and Kolkata 22.
Even in the 9 pm to 10 pm band where Sony's Balaji soaps Kkusum and
Kutumb had made such an impression, the channel reasserted itself and is now claiming an 86-week high share of 25.44. Explaining the channel's strategy for this crucial slot after it was vacated by Kaun Banega Crorepati, Tarun Katial, V-P programming Star Plus, said the idea was to give variety in this band and that was why different genres were allotted for different days. And since all the shows were developed as weeklies, one hour was seen as just right for the shows, he added.
Among the shows that the channel says hit all-time highs in the week were -
* The celebrity karaoke show hosted by Sonu Nigam Kismey Kitna Hai Dam had a TVR of 10.71.
* Kasauti Zindagi Kay had a weekly average TVR of 9.3.
* Sssshhh...koi...hai registered an 8.92 TVR.
* Avinash IPS managed a 4.84 TVR.
