|
Countering
KBC blues -- Zee lines up five soaps
Krishna Gopalan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mumbai
: Zee TV's recent announcement to introduce five new soaps
from February 2001 seems to be an attempt to garner the prime
time viewership share that the channel is rapidly losing to
Star's KBC. In an official statement to the media, Zee has
said these soaps will be aired from February, though the channel
does not specify the timings.
Sources, however, say that two of these serials will actually
be aired in the 9:30 to 10 pm time slot. Gardish, to be produced
by Ravi Rai, will be telecast every Tuesday while Aanchal
will be aired every Wednesday. While Zee officials did not
confirm the fact that the serials are being positioned in
the 9:30 to 10 pm slot, the channel has been approaching sponsors
with the plan.
According
to sources, this is clearly an attempt by Zee to regain its
viewership from KBC.
The latest
Intam data for the three-week period starting December 18,
2000, indicates that Zee's ratings have seen a sharp fall
in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot for Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday,
Thursday and Friday, the ratings were comparatively better.
Zee's
TVRs for Tuesday and Wednesday for the 9:30 to 10 pm slot
have been in the 2-4 range for all C&S households in the
Hindi belt, according to Intam. For Tuesday December 19, the
channel had a rating of 2.79 TVRs. This increased to 4.45
TVRs for Wednesday December 20.
The ratings
for KBC in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot have been in the range of
8-11 TVRs. The special episode telecast on December 31, however,
had a rating of 13.77 TVRs.
Zee shows
an improvement in ratings for other three days of the week.
For Monday (December 18), the rating for the 9:30 to 10 pm
slot was 5.89 TVRs. For Thursday and Friday in the same week,
the ratings were 4.5 TVRs and 5.08 TVRs respectively.
The rating
for Tuesday December 26 was 3.14 TVRs. The ratings increased
marginally to 4.06 TVRs for Wednesday. For the current year,
the ratings for Tuesday January 2 fell to 1.61 TVRs. For the
following day ie Wednesday, ratings increased to 2.24 TVRs.
In fact,
Zee's highest ratings for the 8:30 to 10:00 PM slot for the
three-week period has been 5.89 TVRs (recorded on Monday December
18 in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot).
Additionally,
in March, Zee will launch a daily half-an-hour news and current
affairs programme. Other plans for March include a daily soap.
"While details on the exact time of telecast for all
these programmes are not clear at this stage, the channel
will definitely telecast them only during prime time",
said sources.
TOP
|
Cover
Story
