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SAB TV UK’s first official viewing figures released

SAB TV UK ratings released
SAB TV UK ratings released

Multi Screen Media’s light entertainment channel, SAB TV has had its first official viewing figures released today.

The channel, which was previously a premium service a part of the VIEWASIA package, went free-to-air earlier this month on the Sky Digital platform. The ratings have been measured by official UK monitoring body, BARB, which rates other channels including Star Plus, Star Gold, Zing, Sunrise TV and UMP Movies.

Even though SAB TV has been on BARB for the past couple of weeks, its first lot of ratings were too small to talk about and also it had not made the VIEWASIA changes official at that time. Last week (week ending 22nd April), the channel had a weekly reach of 56,000. This has now nearly trippled to 143,000 (week ending 29th April). It is expected to jump further in the coming days as the channel has just started a huge marketing campaign outdoor, on radio and on its network to promote the new free status of the channel.

During the same period, Star Plus led the market with a weekly reach of over one million viewers, followed by UMP Movies with 705,000, then the defunct Imagine Dil Se with 613,000 and Star Gold in fourth with 571,000. Zing was in fifth with 555,000 and Sunrise TV in sixth with 341,000.

It will be interesting to see how SAB TV’s comedy programming fares in the UK amongst the genre-mix of BARB rated channels in the UK.

The coming weeks will see other channels join BARB including ARY News, UMP Stars and a slew of others.