MUMBAI: There's good news at Zee. The "mother of all awards" has delivered healthy ratings for Subhash Chandra's flagship channel, catapulting Zee TV into the top 50 shows in the TRP stakes after a very long while.

TAM figures for the key Hindi-speaking markets give the Pan Parag Zee Cine Awards a healthy TVR of 4.87. This is all the more creditable considering the fact that the ratings are the average garnered over a solid five-and-a-half hour duration from 8:30 pm on Friday, 27 February, to 2 am early next morning.

For all India, C&S, 4+, the Zee Cine Awards came in at number 49, with an average TVR of 3.3. The much hyped film awards show which preceded this event, the Manikchand Filmfare awards, raked in 3.1 TVRs for Sony Entertainment Television, in the week ended 21 February 2004, giving it the 63rd rank in the stakes. In the same week, however, Star Plus screened the Hero Cycles Stardust awards, which took home TVRs of 4.9 and ranked 30th in the rankings. The Star Parivar Awards on 6 July last year, however, retains the title for the highest ratings for a televised event ever - an all-India ratings list, the show came in at sixth with a 9.9 TVR.

Zee channel shares:

However, the Zee Cine Awards were telecast for a marathon five and half hours, with a half hour curtain raiser before the actual event. An average TVR of 3.3 for nearly six hours thus denotes a whopping viewer response.

For Zee getting back into the viewing public's reckoning with a one-off event, bodes well for the network that's attempting to resurrect some of its lost glory. Sister channel Zee Cinema's efforts to surge ahead too have succeeded with Hum Aapke Hain Koun, aired on 28 February getting a TVR of 2.7 and coming in at number 79 in the rankings. None of Zee's serials, however, make their presence felt in the top 100 yet, however