Indiantelevision.com Team

(28 April 2007 5:00 pm)

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati just released today the DART survey for the the week 31st December, 2006 to 6th January, 2007, according to which the average TV watching during was found to be 83 per cent in rural areas and 75 per cent in urban areas.

The survey is based on 2,407 panel members aged eight-plus years in TV Households of different parts of the country, of which 1,515 were from rural areas and 892 from urban areas.

Daily viewership data was collected through diaries from panel members and the major trend of viewership emerging out of data analysis is summarized below.

Both the evening feature films namely Friday Houseful and Saturday Jubilee were watched by the maximum audience in both the rural and urban audience and ranked 1st and 2nd amongst the top 20 programmes.

On more specifically terms, the report says that for rural audience, Friday Houseful ranked 1st with 33.6 per cent viewership, followed by Saturday Jubilee (32.0 per cent), Rangoli (29.0 per cent), Main Banungi Miss India (26.9 per cent), Sanskar (25.5 per cent) etc.

Whereas amongst the urban audience Saturday Jubilee ranked 1st with 27.7 per cent viewership followed by Friday Houseful (26.6per cent), Sunday afternoon feature film (25.9 per cent), Rangoli (25.7 per cent), Tu Tota Main Maina (23.1 per cent) etc.

Most of the top 20 programmes in rural and urban audience of this week were also among the top 20 programmes of the last report prepared for the month of November, 2006 (for the week of November 26 to December 2, 2006), though there was variation in viewership.

About the viewership of Regional Development Programmes of Agriculture, Health, and Rural Programmes of Doordarshan, the health magazine 'Kalyani' of Doordarshan Kendra, Bhopal, was watched by maximum (29-46 per cent) audience, followed by the corresponding programme watching of Gorakhpur (19-23 per cent) and Guwahati (19-22 per cent).

The Regional Agriculture Programme of Doordarshan Kendra, Bhopal was watched by maximum 31-44 per cent rural audience, followed by the corresponding programme watching of Bhubaneswar (18-25 per cent), Guwahati (11.6-13.6 per cent), Jalandhar (7.5-19 per cent) and Thiruvananthapuram (5-6 per cent).

The Narrowcast Agriculture Programme of Doordarshan Kendra, Gorakhpur which is the only Narrowcast Programme being covered in DART Survey, attracted 16.5 to 20 per cent rural audience and 17 to 23 per cent urban audience, showing that the programme is equally popular with semi urban audience also, who are more or less linked with agriculture profession.

The rural programme 'Gramin Bharat' of Doordarshan Kendra, Bhubaneswar was watched by maximum 15 to 19 per cent rural audience.