Star Plus’ dream run as the top general entertainment channel in terms of TRPs (TV rating points) has been halted.
A new kid in the block, Colors, which was launched less than a year ago, has replaced Star Plus as the top performer, according to TV rating agency TAM India data for the week ended April 11. TRPs or GRPs (gross rating points) of a channel usually translate into its advertising revenue, and are therefore of utmost value.
Since the year 2000, Star Plus, the general entertainment channel in the Star bouquet, has occupied the top position non-stop for nine years. In the recent months, however, the Viacom18 channel, Colors, gave stiff competition to Star Plus, but didn’t quite reach the number one slot. Now, it has.
Even as Colors is excited about reaching the top in such a short time, Star is optimistic of regaining its leadership. The spokesperson of Star said, “Star Plus is a leader and an innovator since the last nine years.” The official added that “leadership is a position that needs to be held week after week, consistently and steadily. We are confident that we will regain our leadership.”
Mona Jain, India head, strategic investments, India Media Exchange (IMX), argued that if Colors is able to maintain its top rank for four to five weeks, it would be a huge competition for Star Plus. “One week is not a true benchmark (to assess leadership),” she said.
According to media analyst Sunil Kumar, “What Colors has done is the finest example of how media business should be managed.” He said that Colors has done what Star Plus had done eight to nine years ago—getting original ideas. If Star Plus rose with its game show KBC and saas-bahu serials, mainly Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Colors is going all out on women empowerment issues. With this development, advertisers are likely to be open to new products and content, he said.
As per the latest TAM data, Colors has a GRP of 292, while Star Plus is lower at 267, in the Hindi speaking market of cable and satellite homes. Zee TV is the third channel from top with a GRP of 236. While the margin between the top three channels is narrow, the gap widens significantly between the third and the fourth channel. NDTV Imagine, as the fourth channel from top, is at a GRP of just 90, followed by Sony Entertainment Television (now Multi Screen Media) at 78, Star One 60, SAB 49, Sahara One 48, Star Utsav 26, DD1 26, 9X 23 and Real 19.
Interestingly, out of the top four channels, the GRPs of both Colors and Star Plus dipped from the previous week. While Colors’ GRP came down from 298 to 292, that of Star Plus dipped from 307 to 267. Zee TV has gained marginally from 235 to 236, and NDTV Imagine from 81 to 90.
With the latest data, Colors has maintained its market share of 24%, while Star Plus’ has slipped to 22% from 25% in previous week. The third player, Zee TV, continues to have a market share of 19%, while that of NDTV Imagine has gone up to 7% from 6% the previous week.
Colors has four entries among the top 10 programmes in the Hindi General Entertainment genre, while Star Plus and Zee TV have three each.
