A strong front from the sports and the web contents have affected the viewership of the flagship shows, Kaun Banega Crorepati and Bigg Boss. Television rating points of both programs stood at 1.5 against 2.5-3 a year ago.
Broadcast Audience Research Council (BRAC), the official monitoring agency, is yet to release viewership figures for these shows. The media industry analysts commented, the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) attracted a larger percentage of the young, male audience. While the urban Hindi-speaking audience is slowly shifting to OTT content.
Shailesh Kapoor, chief executive officer of media consulting company, Ormax said, “Both KBC and Bigg Boss have not performed as well as last year, at least on TV. IPL definitely has a role to play, given that both shows launched during the tournament, which is the first time either has been on air during the IPL.”
Kapoor added since IPL is over, the show may gain more viewership, nevertheless, that remains to be seen. “Non-fiction, overall, has not done that well in this pandemic year. Even (viewership of) The Kapil Sharma Show is down by almost 40%. Disruption of schedules because of the pandemic seems to have led to lesser appointment viewing for non-fiction shows.”
Kishan Kumar, chief growth officer at Wavemaker India, being optimistic, said viewership will have a quick booster in Bigg Boss due to surprise elements and KBC for making celebrity episodes.
An anonyms senior executive from a broadcast network said, “Drama, in general, has done a lot better than non-fiction, a case in point being new launches such as Anupamaa on Star Plus. New content has not just been a breath of fresh air during the pandemic, a lot of people have also realized the importance of family values that these shows deal with.”
The return of channels such as Star Ustav, Zee Anmol, and Zee Anmol Cinema to the free-to-air category has enabled massive gains in TRP from tier-2 and tier-3 towns. Consequently, all new channels launched in the past few months have been in regional language.
Karan Tuurani, an analyst at Elara Capital Ltd said, “Hindi Tv may feel the pinch in another 10-12 months with some non-core genres such as music possibly shutting down.”