Mumbai : Zee TV's recent announcement to introduce five new soaps from February 2001 seems to be an attempt to garner the prime time viewership share that the channel is rapidly losing to Star's KBC. In an official statement to the media, Zee has said these soaps will be aired from February, though the channel does not specify the timings.Sources, however, say that two of these serials will actually be aired in the 9:30 to 10 pm time slot. Gardish, to be produced by Ravi Rai, will be telecast every Tuesday while Aanchal will be aired every Wednesday. While Zee officials did not confirm the fact that the serials are being positioned in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot, the channel has been approaching sponsors with the plan.
According to sources, this is clearly an attempt by Zee to regain its viewership from KBC.
The latest Intam data for the three-week period starting December 18, 2000, indicates that Zee's ratings have seen a sharp fall in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot for Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday, Thursday and Friday, the ratings were comparatively better.
Zee's TVRs for Tuesday and Wednesday for the 9:30 to 10 pm slot have been in the 2-4 range for all C&S households in the Hindi belt, according to Intam. For Tuesday December 19, the channel had a rating of 2.79 TVRs. This increased to 4.45 TVRs for Wednesday December 20.
The ratings for KBC in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot have been in the range of 8-11 TVRs. The special episode telecast on December 31, however, had a rating of 13.77 TVRs.
Zee shows an improvement in ratings for other three days of the week. For Monday (December 18), the rating for the 9:30 to 10 pm slot was 5.89 TVRs. For Thursday and Friday in the same week, the ratings were 4.5 TVRs and 5.08 TVRs respectively.
The rating for Tuesday December 26 was 3.14 TVRs. The ratings increased marginally to 4.06 TVRs for Wednesday. For the current year, the ratings for Tuesday January 2 fell to 1.61 TVRs. For the following day ie Wednesday, ratings increased to 2.24 TVRs.
In fact, Zee's highest ratings for the 8:30 to 10:00 PM slot for the three-week period has been 5.89 TVRs (recorded on Monday December 18 in the 9:30 to 10 pm slot).
Additionally, in March, Zee will launch a daily half-an-hour news and current affairs programme. Other plans for March include a daily soap. "While details on the exact time of telecast for all these programmes are not clear at this stage, the channel will definitely telecast them only during prime time", said sources.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
