BENGALURU: That both the Bhagya soaps (Kumkum Bhagya and its spinoff Kundali Bhagya) from Ektaa Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms' stable have been pushing up viewership for Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited’s (Zeel) flagship Hindi GEC, Zee TV, seems to be a given. Another comedy sitcom from Optimystix Entertainment, Kya Haal Mr. Panchaal, has been bringing in audiences for Star India’s free-to-air (FTA) Hindi GEC, more so from the overall Hindi-speaking markets (HSM) and a big chunk of the HSM rural markets.
Probably one of the longest-running sitcoms in the genre, Taarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashmah, has continued to bring in and maintain eyeballs for Sony Pictures Network India’s (SPN) women-focussed Hindi GEC Sony Pal. SPN’s Hindi movies channel Sony Max has often been among the ten most-watched channels across genres, more so when it features the IPL. In week 46 of 2017, Sony Pal was aided by three films–Kanchana Returns, Salman Khan-starrer Sultan, and Son of Satyamurthy–to find a place among the top-10 channels across genres.
And the results show by the very presence of these channels in Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) weekly data for the top-10 channels across channels (All India (U+R) : 2+ individuals) for week 46 of 2017 (Saturday, 11 November 2017 to Friday, 17 November 2017).
One channel each from the Tamil GEC and Hindi Movies genres, two channels from the Telugu GEC genre and six channels from the Hindi GEC genre made it to the top 10 channels across genres list this particular week. Another way to put it – three channels from Zeel, two channels each from or associated with Star India, SPN and Network18 made it to the top 10.
Continuing the top position that it seems to have reserved for itself (except during IPL) was the Sun Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV with 1,088.566 million weekly impressions. As has also become the norm, all the top-five programmes from the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry urban and rural markets (NCCS All : Prime Time [1800 - 2330 hrs] : 2+ Individuals) were also from Sun TV.
At second place in the across genres list was Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV with 724.307 million impressions followed by Viacom18 flagship Hindi GEC Colors with 668.894 million weekly impressions at third place. Close on the heels of Colors was Zeel’s FTA Hindi GEC Zee Anmol with 665.740 million weekly impressions at fourth place aided to some extent by the soap Gangaa.
At fifth place was Star India’s Star Bharat with 664.785 million weekly impressions, followed by SPN’s Sony Pal with 633.434 million weekly impressions at sixth place. Star Plus was at seventh place with 558.510 million weekly impressions followed by the Network 18 associated Telugu GEC ETV Telugu with 522.225 million weekly impressions at eighth place.
SPN’s Hindi movies channel Sony Max was at ninth place in week 46 of 2017 with 519.599 million weekly impressions followed by Zeel’s Telugu GEC Zee Telugu with 490.687 million weekly impressions at tenth place.
