Indiantelevision.com Team

(29 January 2009 9:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Colors is slowly and steadily creeping up on Hindi GEC market leader Star Plus. Last week (week 3), Colors was 8 GRPs behind Star Plus, while its channel share was two percentage points lower at 23.

A look at the Tam ratings for week 4 (18-24 January, HSM 4+ C&S homes ) shows that Star Plus with 292.6 GRPs is still ahead of Colors by 6.3 GRPs. However, in terms of channel share the margin between the two is a wafer thin half percentage point with Star Plus at 25.5 per cent and Colors at 25 per cent.

Overall the Hindi GEC category GRPs went up by 53.7 points in week 4 over week 3, clearly indicating that GEC viewing is rising.

“Colors ratings have shot up because of its weekday primetime shows. Now there will not be a single consistent No. 1 GEC; rather there will be an up-and-down between these two players in the coming weeks,” says a media observer.

For Colors, on the programming front, Balika Vadhu remained as the top rated show for the week with a peak TVR of 8.6, whereas Jai Shri Krishna managed 6.2 TVR. Uttaran also notched a 3.7 TVR in the week. Meanwhile, the kids comic reality show Chhote Miyan (2.78 TVR) and Dancing Queen (1.73 TVR) added their bit. The Amitabh Bachchan starrer Bhootnath clocked a TVR of 2.9 for the channel.

Colors is claiming a reach of 62.6 per cent, higher than Star Plus (60.7 per cent).

For Star Plus, Bidaai remained as its top rated show with a maximum TVR of 7.7, while Yeh Rishta Kyaa Kehlata Hai clocked a TVR of 6.

Zee TV, which has acceded its second spot to Colors, got a boost with its GRPs rising by 25, ending the week with 220.6 GRPs . Its flagship singing reality show Saregamapa's Grand Finale, on 24 January, notched a TVR of 4.9. The channel is launching a new dance reality show Dance India Dance with Mithun Chakraborty as grandmaster from 30 January.

Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television (SET) shaved off 19 GRPs to stand at the fourth spot with 73.8 GRPs. NDTV Imagine, which premiered films like Race (0.79 TVR) and Kismat Konnection (1.25 TVR) in the week, jumped to fifth position with 72.8 GRPs, while Sahara One also managed a hike of 7.9 GRPs and managed 54.9 GRPs.

"We are not sure how long the current state of affairs is going to continue," says a media planner. "Some of the channels are launching new shows. Don't be surprised if some of them find audiences and hence in turn affect the GRP and TVR rankings.Today's No 1 or 2 may end up being three and four or likewise."