Three seasons on, 'Naagin' continues to rule the viewership charts

The show's popularity among the urban audiences, and more specifically, in the affluent audience segments, makes it a lucrative option for advertisers looking to advertise on GEC's during the weekends

Colors' costume drama Naagin, currently in its third season, boasts consistent audience in urban markets, taking the sting out of the myth that the show's viewership is rural-skewed.

According to data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC), 66 per cent of the show's viewership comes from urban India. For season one, the contribution of urban India was 65 per cent, and in season two, it was 64 per cent.

One of the major reasons for the urban skew would be because Naagin is aired on Colors, a paid channel, and hence is more widely distributed in urban India. Free-to-air (FTA) channels have better and wider reach in rural areas since they are available on DD Freedish.

That's not all. In terms of NCCS (new consumer classification system), it is the affluent segments, NCCS A and B, that contribute 51 per cent of the show's viewership. NCCS is a system of categorizing households according to socio-economic status based on criteria such as education and goods owned. NCCS A and B are the groups advertisers usually target. Add to this the fact that 46 per cent of the viewership on the show comes from male audiences. This, however, is below the average viewership of males on general entertainment channels (GECs), which is 48 per cent of the total eyeballs the genre attracts.
 

"The success of Naagin in the urban and NCCS A and B markets is a positive for Colors. Since the paid GECs anyway only look at urban data, a show doing well in that market means more leverage with advertisers. Having the affluent audiences hooked and a healthy male skew means that advertisers have a good vehicle on Colors during the weekend prime time slot," a broadcasting executive says.

The show's viewership ebbed and flowed over the three seasons. The first season had a viewership of 17.6 million impressions in the Hindi speaking market (HSM). The figure dropped to 11.9 million impressions in the second season. And now, the third season has bounced back with a viewership of 15 million impressions, so far.

Experts believe that adopting a seasonal format has actually helped the show hold its own in viewership. Unlike other soaps/dramas on GECs, Naagin has successfully adopted the format of the finite episode. 

"Having a break between seasons allows for crisper storytelling. It also allows the show to end on a cliff-hanger, baiting the audiences to return next season. It has been done successfully in the west and is a norm there," the industry expert says.

Dabur is the title sponsor of the show which also has spot advertisers (advertisers who advertise during the commercial breaks, but are not sponsors of the show) across various categories. Estimates peg that the success of the show, and its affinity in the affluent audience segments allows it to command a significant premium over what other GECs fare in its time slot.

The show has come under a fair bit of criticism from viewers, social commentators, and netizens for its story and premise. The data from BARC, however, shows that Naagin is doing what every channel expects a prime-time show to do – bring the eyeballs which will eventually bring in the moolah.