77 mn viewers: Ramayan breaks records, becomes world's most-watched show

Ramanand Sagars popular TV serial 'Ramayan' which is re-airing on Doordarshan became the world's most-watched show on April 16 with 77 million viewers, DD India posted on its official Twitter handle on late Thursday night.

'Ramayan' is being telecast again since March 28 on public demand. In fact, when it was telecast for the first time, the serial had broken all records of popularity, and the show has repeated its history again.

Ramanand Sagar had made a total of 78 episodes of this serial based on Valmiki's Ramayana and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas .

For the first time in the country, the serial was originally broadcast from January 25, 1987 to July 31, 1988. Then, every Sunday, at 9.30 a.m. the show was aired on TV.

From 1987 to 1988, 'Ramayan' became the most watched serial in the world. Till June 2003, it remained recorded in the Limca Book of Records as "the most watched mythological serial in the world".

Interestingly, when the serial started airing in the country for the first time, people used to remain glued to the TV sets. Since there were less TVs at homes then, most of the people used to gather at some neighbour's place to watch 'Ramayan'.