zee beats sony again

The Battle for No. 2 slot

Sitaram Sundalia - Televisionpoint.com
The entertainment television universe is currently witnessing an interesting battle for the No. 2 spot with Zee TV creeping up to challenge Sony Entertainment Television. Zee was helped along with some new shows launched during November and December last year. But with Indian Idol re-launching, SET may consolidate its lead once again.

An examination of the preceding one month's viewership data shows, Zee TV leveling out with Sony with a channel share of 12.6 per cent each. In the subsequent week, too both are nearly level at 12.2 per cent (SET) and Zee TV (12.1 per cent).

However, in the beginning of January SET again jumps to the lead on the back of the re-launched Indian Idol series with a share of 15.2 per cent compared with Zee's 12.8 per cent. Again in the last week, which has a special series of Saath Phere, with Saloni's marriage on Zee TV, the share of the channel has increased to a overwhelming 20 per cent. Zee TV's surge over the last month was mainly aided by a slew of new launches including a sitcom Hum Paanch and the reality show Challenge 2005, and also Mamta. Great expectations are leveraged with Kasamh Se, a Balaji Brand, which may subsequently increase the channel share to 20-25 %

"The new soaps Sindhoor and Saath Phere in prime time have also helped the channel get better TRPs," Zee TV's VP-marketing Tarun Mehra said.

In weeks to come though, it will be interesting to see how Zee meets the challenge posed by the Set's re-launched Indian Idol, when it comes to its lasting phase. For Starters note, Zee TV has launched a Manoj Bajpayee-hosted game show called Kam Ya Zyaada with a huge promotion budget.

Star Plus, however, remains untouched as the most-watched with a huge viewership share averaging around 56 per cent of the combined entertainment channels. Among the top TV shows Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 was No. 1 with a average rating of 9.2, but was subsequently overrun by Star Plus' long-running Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. With the taking ill of show host Amitabh Bachchan, KBC-2 has been reduced to 2 times a week earlier, and currently the show is in the Flashback stages. With the mass concern about the Big B's illness, one can be sure that its TVRs will shoot up pushing it to No. 1 again.

The comedy channel Sab interestingly after its re-launch has shown a channel share of nearly 3 per cent. This is not high, but taken together with the Sony flagship channel the combined share is a healthy 18 per cent. Set's buying off the channel off the Adhikari Brothers thus seems to have been a prudent move. The second line entertainment channels Sahara One and Star One both lost viewership over the last month.