UK ratings: Prime TV zooms ahead of Geo TV

The war between Pakistani channels has taken another turn as local channel, Prime TV thrashed Geo TV in UK ratings in terms of weekly reach.

According to official data from BARB for week ending Sunday 25th January 2015, Prime TV delivered a reach of 288,000 viewers in its first lot of official viewing data. Rival, Pakistani channel, Geo TV could only manage 177,000 viewers (down from 196,000 viewers). However, Hum TV Europe remained the most watched Pakistani entertainment channel in the UK with 476,000 viewers (down from 500,000 viewers). It will be interesting to see how the ratings change in weeks to come. Recently, Hum TV Europe has upped its marketing spend to push the profile of the channel out in the UK.

Star Plus remained the market leader with 1,066,000 viewers (last week 1,070,000 viewers), while UMP Movies took second place with 797,000 viewers (last week 741,000 viewers) and Colors in third with 765,000 viewers (last week 731,000 viewers). Rishtey took fourth place with 709,000 viewers (up from 627,000 viewers) and Zing in fifth place with 562,000 viewers (down from 565,000 viewers).

The next tier consisted of Star Gold with 510,000 viewers, Hum TV Europe with 476,000 viewers, Life Ok with 469,000 viewers, SAB TV with 383,000 viewers and Lamhe with 339,000 viewers.

The bottom tier included the likes of Prime TV with 288,000 viewers, PTC Punjabi with 237,000 viewers, PTV Global with 172,000 viewers, Sikh Channel with 165,000 viewers, Brit Asia TV with 165,000 viewers and DM Global with 160,000 viewers.

ARY News remained the leader of the pack in the news genre with 492,000 viewers (up from 488,000 viewers), followed by Geo News with 263,000 viewers (last week 355,000 viewers) and Aaj Tak with 260,000 viewers (last week 276,000 viewers). The others in the pecking order were Geo Tez with 256,000 viewers, SAMAA TV with 248,000 viewers, ABP News with 173,000 viewers, NDTV 24×7 with 135,000 viewers and News18 India with 52,000 viewers.