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Purvita Chatterjee

Mumbai, July 23 Despite the news channels’ saturation coverage of the high drama in Parliament over the trust vote, Viacom’s new general entertainment channel (GEC) managed to increase its viewership on its second day.

Even considering that the timings of the respective television genres did not clash as the action in Parliament ended by the time the new channel unveiled its fresh programming, the ratings of the news channels were much below that of the new Colors channel from Viacom 18.

In fact, on its second day, Colors has succeeded in growing its gross rating points (GRPs) (from 8.1 to 13.9), in spite of the news channels capturing the excitement on the trust vote. According to rating agency aMap’s data, on the day of the trust vote in Parliament, Colors recorded GRPs of 13.7, while a news channel like DD Lok Sabha recorded a GRP of 1.2. But the gap in ratings between a news channel and a new GEC channel can be easily explained.

According to Mr Tarun Nigam, Executive Director, Starcom, “The numbers are based on the hype created by the GEC channel around its property and its reality shows. But after the initial four weeks, these numbers will settle down and one should be cautious about such initial ratings.

“As Colors started its programming much after the high drama in Parliament, its ratings were not affected by the news channels. But if it had been the other way round, the new GEC channel was bound to get affected.”

The new Viacom channel, Colors, launched itself at 7 p.m. on Monday, and its most highly rated show is its reality show, Fear Factor Khatron Ke Khiladi which is aired after 10 p.m..

In fact, Colors managed to bag the number three position after Star and Zee, according to officials at Viacom 18. But analysts claim that all the new channels in the GEC space today have equally good content and programming with enough marketing hype to support them.

Meanwhile, officials at aMap claim that Colors has beaten the other new GEC channels in its initial ratings.

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