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TV ratings: ‘Indian Idol 3’ gets off to good start

Its been over a year now since ZEE TV took the helm to become India’s number two channel in India (STAR Plus at top). This resulted in former number two – Sony Entertainment Television Asia being pushed to number three/four in the competitive Indian TV market.

Officials at Sony TV are hoping that the new series of its popular show ‘Indian Idol 3’ change the fortunes for the broadcaster.

Though the show, which opened with a TVR of 3.03 on Friday 4th May, certainly helped the channel increase its share in the time slot, it couldn�۪t catapult Sony TV out of the number 3 slot.

As per TAM Media Research (C&S, 4+, HSM), the show managed a TVR of 3.08 with the second episode on Saturday 5th May, and its channel share in the 21:00-22:00 slot on Friday and Saturday went up from 10.77 per cent in the previous week to 28.65 per cent in Week 18 among GECs.

But overall, for the whole week, the show could increase SET�۪s market share by only a few marginal percentage points from 12.59 per cent in Week 17 to 13.08 per cent in Week 18, the week when the show was aired.

In comparison, the other two lead channels ��� STAR Plus and ZEE TV ��� garnered a channel share of 37.93 per cent and 24.97 per cent, respectively.

Anita Nayyar, CEO, MPG, India, is of the opinion that the ratings of ‘Indian Idol’ are still satisfactory as this is the third season of the reality series. “The show can�۪t achieve what it did in the first season or even in the second season, when it started off with a much bigger TVR,” says Nayyar. The first two seasons had opened with a TVR of 5.4.

Nayyar says SET needs to do more than an ��Indian Idol�۪ to get close to ZEE, forget STAR Plus as of now.

Close observers of the industry expect the competition to heat up for ‘Indian Idol’ once STAR�۪s ‘Voice of India’ is on air. “It’s already competing with ‘Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ on ZEE TV, which is also a talent hunt show for singers,” says Tarun Nigam, executive director, North, Starcom.

“In fact, ZEE�۪s ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ started off with a better TVR of 4.0,” Nayyar adds.

Analysing the reasons for ‘Indian Idol’s’ not so great performance, a senior media planner says, ���The first two episodes of ‘Indian Idol 3’ had too much reality in them, probably the promoters served too much ‘masala’, which might have killed the appetite.”