The Mumbai terror attacks coupled with the re-runs of old shows on Hindi entertainment chanels have managed to severly erode the viewership ratings of the general entertainment category by as much as 44 per cent compared to the pre-terror strike period.

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This is based on the analysis of data generated by the TV audience measurement agency TAM Media. And because of this, Star Plus—the market leader among the 12-odd Hindi general entertainment channels for a long time—took the biggest hit as it slipped to the number three spot behind Colors and Zee TV for the first time in several years, an analysis of viewership data of TAM media shows.

For the week ending November 29, the gross rating points (GRPs) of Star Plus came down to 98 (112 in previous week), a drop of 12.5 per cent behind Colors (124 GRPs) and Zee TV (102 GRPs).

Overall, the ratings of the Hindi general entertainment category for the week ending November 29 went down by 19 per cent compared to the previous week as the channels together recorded a weekly GRP of 661 compared to 815 registered for the week ending November 22.

This is important because this category attracts nearly half of the total advertising revenue generated on the television channels. It is estimated that television as a medium, generated an ad-revenue of Rs 7,500-Rs 8,000 crore last year.

“This was bound to happen and it is not significant from the advertisers point of view. The terror strike happened and the viewership of news channels went up at the cost of Hindi entertainment channels. Also, we were showing re-runs all through that week and the previous week and it should be looked in that light,” a senior executive from Star India said. However, in the same period, the genre of news channels recorded an over 150 per cent jump in viewership ratings.

The news genre together went up from 252 GRP level in the last 6 weeks to 627 GRPs across the Hindi speaking market for the week ending November 29, the analysis of TAM data said. Accordingly, Hindi news channel Aaj Tak emerged as the leading channel with 122 GRPs followed by Star news (87 GRPs) and India TV (86.6 GRPs).

According to TAM, the viewership on television is broadly divided into 12 categories like English news, English business news, Hindi news, Hindi general entertainment, English movies, Hindi movies among others.

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