Hyderabad : One of the costliest non-fiction property in South Indian television market, the Telugu version of KBC hosted by the most happening actor in Telugu ”Nagarjuna” titled ‘Meelo Evaru Koteeswarudu’ (MEK) has failed to meet the market expectation, as the show has failed to deliver the bench mark numbers despite the popularity and charisma of the host Nagarjuna and scores of celebrity appearances like Samantha, Nithiin, Varun Tej, Pooja Hegde, Rakul Preet etc…
The second season of MEK started on 8th December has opened with 8.2 TVR against 8.4 in MF4+ and 11.2 TVR in Fe 15+ ABC in the concluding week of MEK first season by 1st week of August 2014. However, the show hasn’t been able to generate as much buzz as it did in the first season and its ratings kept dwindling and there seems to be no hope for the show in near future, to bounce back to double digit, which was the expectation of the advertisers and agencies.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Media Planner from the leading agency said that ”Considering the popularity of the show’s first season, we were expecting numbers to the above 10 TVR right from the first week, but the show has not only failed to open that way but also failed to grow from there on and the present situation looks very disappointing”.
As per the ratings of first week of 2015, MEK 2 has seen its worst as the show has delivered an average of 4.5 TVR in MF4+ and 6.4 TVR in Female 15+ABC which is 50% lesser than the average of the previous season and failed to find a spot among the top five reality shows on AP Market.
The comparative study of week 51 and 52 also reveals that the show was netting an average of 5 TVR in MF4+ and 7 TVR in Fe15+ABC.
Market Sources also states that too much of Celebrity episodes created a fatigue among audience and due to the same reason it failed to connect with the common audience unlike the way it did in the first season. Few others also claim that the launch of second season with in a very short span of 4 months was also reason for drop in viewership.
The show despite showing a moderate improvement in the 2nd week of 2015, it still has no credible chance of reaching the peak numbers it has delivered during the previous season.
Incidentally, the Malayalam version of the show titled ”NAK” has also witnessed a similar fate in the second season on Asianet that made the channel to take a decent break before launching the third season.
