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GECs hold their fort during IPL
During this annual cricket festival, GECs are retaining their viewers through interesting plots in the daily fiction shows.
General entertainment channels (GECs) are usually in a vulnerable state when the Indian Premier League (IPL) is on. However, this time around, the top GECs seem to have managed to keep themselves decoupled from the IPL mania.
In Week 20 of 2011 (as per TAM Media Research), the top three GECs have maintained a status quo in viewership as compared to the previous week. Though all top three channels have lost viewers last week, the reason for that was not the IPL, but Osama's death, which pushed viewers to the news channels.
At No. 2, Colors has added 5 GRPs, growing from 221 GRPs in Week 19, to 226 GRPs in Week 20. Meanwhile, the No. 3 channel, Zee TV, has been stagnant at 183 GRPs.
Though these channels haven't launched any new shows in the previous few weeks since the IPL started, they are surviving with interesting plots in their daily fiction shows.
Saathiya Saath Nibhana on Star Plus (5.78 TVR), Balika Vadhu on Colors (4.89 TVR) and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai on Star Plus (4.32 TVR) are the top three shows for the current week.
However, Sony, at No. 4, has lost a marginal 6 GRPs and its share has come down from 12.8 per cent to 12 per cent.
Its sister channel SAB has added 10 GRPs to stand at 131 GRPs, and increased its share to 11 per cent.
Among other channels, Imagine TV has maintained a status quo at 64 GRPs, while STAR One has added 6 GRPs to take its score to 40 GRPs.
STAR Utsav, which survives on re-runs of old episodes of serials of Star Plus, is ahead of Sahara One. While STAR Utsav has garnered 35 GRPs -- four GRPs more than the previous week, Sahara One is at 28 GRPs, having added 2 GRPs since last week.
DD1 and Zee Smile are the last two in the list, with shares of 1.3 per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively.
The other top shows on the GECs are Pavitra Rishta on Zee TV (4.04 TVR), Navya on Star Plus (3.97 TVR), Sasural Genda Phool on Star Plus (3.69 TVR), Ram Milayi Jodi on Zee (3.58), Uttaran on Colors (3.31 TVR), Pratigya on Star Plus (3.3 TVR), and Na Aana Is Des Laado on Colors (3.27 TVR).