MUMBAI: Star India‘s biggest programming property of the year and Aamir Khan‘s debut TV show Satyamev Jayate has made an impact, energising the Sunday morning slot.
The one-and-a-half-hour first episode on female foeticide, telecast at 11 am, opened with an aggregate rating of 4.09 across the country for viewers above four years and reached out to 27 million viewers.
The TAM data is for the entire Indian market, including cable and terrestrial homes where Doordarshan beams. Satyamev Jayate airs on seven Star network channels, ETV Telugu and pubcaster Doordarshan.
The show recorded a rating of 4 in the Hindi speaking market of C&S homes, according to TAM.
Says Star India executive vice president marketing and communications Gayatri Yadav, “The 11 am slot was not at all active. We are happy that our strategy has worked and the time spent by audiences has been quite good. It seems to have worked both in the upper SEC audiences and terrestrial homes. Beyond anything, it‘s the buzz of the show that has been historic; it‘s connecting well with the viewers.”
But isn‘t Star disappointed with the show‘s rating of 3 on its flagship channel Star Plus? Yadav feels that the show should be seen in its totality and not in isolation.
“We are happy with the ratings on Star Plus. We also need to get used to this concept of simulcast as networks have game changing show properties. We will put such properties across our network channels. We must expand our lexicon and see it as an aggregate. The aggregate viewership has been very encouraging,” says Yadav.
How advertisers view the ratings
Advertisers, who have bet big monies on the show across the channels, tend to agree. Says GroupM CEO Vikram Sakhuja, “The debut
ratings have been very good and must be viewed in totality. The reach of the show is also fantastic.”
The biggest benefit is that the Aamir Khan show circulated on other platforms beyond television. Satyamev Jayate, in fact, was the most searched term in Google in India on 6 May, the day of its launch. The show trended 1-9 on the top Twitter Trends.
Says associate sponsor Axis Bank CMO Manisha Lath Gupta, “The ratings support our strategy. We have integrated with the show and have got a lot of traffic from people who aren‘t necessarily our consumers. We have a presence towards the end of the show when we say that ‘to make contribution you can reach out to Axis Bank‘. We have got a lot of value by associating with the show.”
Lodestar UM CEO Shashi Sinha believes the initial response has been positive, particularly among the upscale
audiences. “The rating that the show has got is very good. What is more interesting is to see how it is doing in SEC A. Four is a good opening for a Sunday morning slot.”
Satyamev Jayate has also got a very high interactive value. “If you look at social media, the show has generated a lot of interactivity and buzz. The most difficult audience to get today is SEC A, but the show has managed to tap them,” says Sinha.
Not everybody, though, is convinced. Lintas Initiative Media CEO Sudha Natrajan is disappointed with the ratings that Star Plus has got, though she thinks it was a bold step to start something like this on Sunday mornings. “It is their way of recapturing the Sunday morning time band. It will take a bit longer for the viewership to build up on Star Plus during this time zone. The show is very tightly produced and there are topics of high interest,” she says.
As per Tam data provided by the channel, the show opened with roughly 50 per cent higher ratings in Upper SEC audiences (SEC A 5.9 TVR All 4+). In C&S homes, the show garnered 14.4 TVR in the 15-34 age group, (Digital homes, HSM Million+).
Terrestrial viewers have got hooked on to the show. Doordarshan has posted ratings of 11 (Non C&S Households).
“One should not only see the show from the pure TVR point of view. One has to also notice the amount of buzz that is being created
in the market . The show has done very well on that front. It is more valuable for the brands that it is being talked about so much,” concludes Starcom MediaVest Group chairman and LiquidThread (Asia-Pacific) MD CVL Srinivas.
How the Hindi GECs rank
The pecking order of the Hindi general entertainment channels remains the same. Star Plus leads, adding 14 GRPs in the week ended 12 May, according to TAM data (C&S 4+ HSM).
The channel‘s fiction property Diya Aur Baati Hum leads with 4.92 TVR. Diya Aur Baati Hum has edged past Zee TV‘s homegrown dancing reality show DID lil Masters, pushing it to No. 2 on the ‘top 10 shows‘ list.
Despite losing 15 GRPs, Zee TV continues to hold its position as the second most watched Hindi GEC. The drop comes as DID lil Masters sees a dip in viewership in its third week. The show, which had garnered 6.2 and 5.8 TVR in the first two weeks respectively, could manage 4.82 TVR this week. Zee TV‘s fiction property Punarvivah has seen improved performance, securing a position in the top 10 most watched shows with a 3.42 TVR.
Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television (Set) has also lost three GRPs to end the week with 217 GRPs.
Colors has added six GRPs to cross the 200 mark. The channel closed the week with 201 GRPs. Its biggest fiction property, Balika Vadhu, saw a rise in viewership, clocking 4.48 TVR and ranking fourth.
Sab added 27 GRPs to close the week with 131 GRPs. The channel has seen ratings jump across weekend prime-time, weekday prime-time and weekday afternoon prime-time slots.
Life OK, the second GEC from Star, also added six GRPs to end the week with 91 points.
Sahara One remained at the bottom of the ladder with 40 GRPs.
