Chennai: Tamil GEC market witnessed the return of fresh episodes of Prime Time shows from the middle to last week of July 2020, with all leading entertainment channels like Sun TV, Zee Tamil, Star Vijay and Colors Tamil resuming the telecast of fresh content.
The Come-back weeks are challenging moment for broadcasters across India as they were in need to pull back their audience who got exposed to newer options like OTT Platforms and also sampled other genres like movies. Moreover, it also gave an opportunity for every broadcaster to relook at their content strategy to attract more eyeballs in post-Covid-19 Lockdown weeks.
The market was eagerly awaiting the Come-Back week numbers to understand the viewership pattern and also to know who emerged victorious in attracting the audience with their newly laid content strategy. According to BARC data for week 30 to week 34, Zee Tamil emerged as the stronger player in the Prime Time band while Sun TV still retained the overall leadership in Tamil GEC space.
The dominance of Zee Tamil in Prime Time was strongly backed by its fiction line up with its prime property ‘Sembaruthi at 9 PM’, consistently topping the charts with an average of 11.09 TVR in the last 5 weeks while ‘Naayagi’ on Sun TV delivering 7.09 TVR. ‘Kalyana Veedu’ at 8 PM was the Sun TV’s top-rated fiction show with Avg of 9.07 TVR.
Zee Tamil also demonstrated a week on week growing trend in viewership in Prime Time with its Weekdays Prime Time – Slot Share (between 19:30 to 23:00 hrs in U+R) increasing from 26% in week 30 to 39.02% in week 34 (five-week Avg of 36%). On the other hand Sun TV’s share dropped from 38.3% in week 30 to 30.7% in week 34. Similarly the No. 3 player Star Vijay’s Prime Time share dropped from 25.1% in week 30 to 21.9% in week 34.
Prime Time viewership-driven by strong Fiction line-up between 19:30-23:00 hrs also resulted in Zee Tamil’s weekly GRPs surging from 528 in week 30 to 663 GRP (U+R) in week 34 (five-week avg 624). Sun TV’s GRPs during the come-back weeks dropped from 1329 in week 30 to 1119 in week 34 while Star Vijay moderately surged from 557 GRPs in week 30 to 581 GRPs.
The potential of a TV channel is determined by the strength of its fiction line-up, as the same assures a sustained viewership with greater stickiness drive, that in turn factors the revenue growth of any channel. Zee Tamil got itself comfortably placed in the Post Covid-19 lockdown scenario putting its competitors to scramble for alter their strategy.
