BENGALURU: It is the third week since the commencement of India’s richest league and for the second week in a row Star Sports 1 Hindi led viewership ratings as per Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly ratings for the top 10 channels across genre in week 15 of 2019 (). Dangal was the most watched Hindi GEC channel for the third week in a row since the recommencement of BARC’s publication of viewership data. BARC had stopped publishing data in the public domain after the new TRAI tariff order was to be implemented after week 5 of 2019 and restarted publication on coercion from the regulator from week 13 of 2019.

Six Hindi GECs, two Tamil channels and one channel each from the Sports and Telugu genre made up BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels across genres. From the networks’ perspective, there were three channels each from Star India and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel), and one channel each from Enterr10 Television, Sony Pictures Network India (SPN), Sun T Network and Viacom 18 in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels across genres.

As mentioned  above, Star Sports 1 Hindi retained its first rank in the top 10 channels across genres list in week 15 of 2015 with 1,111.416 million weekly impressions as compared to 1,116.236 416 million weekly impressions in week 14. Star Sports 1 Hindi was also ranked first in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Sports channels and all the top five programmes in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Sports programmes were aired on it.

Dangal has gained viewership since the withdrawal of a number of FTA channels from DD FreeDish and their conversion into pay TV channels after the implementation of the new tariff order– the chief ones being Zeel’s Hindi GEC Zee Anmol and Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Utsav. Dangal was ranked second in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels across genres with 1,084.693 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 1,101.407 million weekly impressions in week 14. Dangal also headed BARC’s weekly lists of top 10 Hindi GECs in the combined urban and rural Hindi speaking market -HSM (U+R) and HSM (R). Dangal was ranked sixth in HSM (U). Two Indian mythology programmes on Dangal Ramayan and Mahima Shanidev Ki were in BARC’s list of  Top 5 Hindi GEC programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (U+R). Further, three programmes on Dangal – the above mentioned Ramayan and Mahima Shanidev Ki and Saibaba were also among the top 5 Hindi GEC programmes in HSM (R).

At its previous week’s third rank was the Sun TV Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV with 859.261 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 892.873 million weekly impressions in week 14. Sun TV also headed BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Tamil channels in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry markets and two of the top 5 Tamil programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week were aired on Sun TV.

Moving up a place to fourth rank was Star India’s flagship Telugu GEC Star Maa with 771.282 million weekly impressions in week 15 of 2019 as compared to 687.939 million weekly impressions in week 14 of 2019. Star Maa was also ranked first in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Telugu GECs in the Andhra Pradesh/Telangana markets and all the five programmes in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Telugu programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in these markets were aired on Star Maa.

Dropping a place in week 15 of 2019 to rank 5 was Zeel’s Hindi GEC Big Magic with 740.600 million weekly impressions as compared with 691.954 million weekly impressions in week 14 of 2019. Big Magic was ranked second in BARC’s weekly lists of top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U+R) and HSM (R). Big Magic was ranked eighth in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U).  The fantasy action thriller Maharakshak Aryan and  the Indian mythology drama Parmavtar Shree Krishna aired on Big Magic were ranked fourth and fifth in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (R).

Star India’s flagship Hindi GEC Star Plus retained its previous week’s rank 6 in week 15 of 2019 with 662.252 million weekly impressions as compared to 643.903 million weekly impressions in week 14. Star Plus was also ranked third, fourth and first in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 Hindi GECs’ in HSM (U+R), HSM (R) and HSM (U) respectively. Kulfi Kumar Bajewala, on Star Plus, was amongst BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Hindi programmes on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (U).

Entering BARC’s weekly list of top 10 channels across genre in week 15 of 2019 at seventh rank was Zeel’s flagship Tamil GEC Zee Tamil with 599.931 million weekly impressions. Zee Tamil was ranked second in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 Tamil channels in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry markets and three of the top 5 Tamil programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week were aired on Zee Tamil.

Dropping a place in week 15 of 2019 to eighth rank was Zeel’s flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV with 566.661 million weekly impressions as compared to 569.946 million weekly impressions in week 14. Zee TV was ranked fourth in HSM (U+R) and HSM (U) and was ranked third in HSM (R). The Balaji Telefilms produced Kumkum Bhagya and its spinoff Kundali Bhagya aired on Zee TV were among the top 5 programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (U+R) and in HSM (U).

Climbing up one place in week 15 of 2019 to ninth rank was Viacom18’s flagship Hindi GEC Colors with 547.432 million weekly impressions as compared to 512.942 million weekly impressions in week 14. Colors was also ranked fifth in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U+R), HSM (R) respectively and was ranked third HSM (U). The Balaji Telefilms-produced supernatural fantasy show Naagin-3 aired on Colors was present in BARC’s list of top 5 Hindi GEC programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (U+R) and HSM (U).

SPN’s flagship Hindi GEC Sony Entertainment Television (SET) dropped a place to tenth rank in week 15 of 2019 with 519.430 million weekly impressions as compared to 513.530 million weekly impressions. SET was also ranked fifth, sixth and second in BARC’s weekly list of top 10 Hindi GECs in HSM (U+R), HSM (R) and HSM (U) respectively. The comedy show The Kapil Sharma Show was ranked fourth in BARC’s weekly list of top 5 programmes based on average rating across all original airings in the week in HSM (U).