Rishtey Cineplex, the Viacom 19 Media groups’ Hindi Movie channel, for the second successive week has topped the ratings for its genre. Albeit, on the strength of cricket.
What cinema could not do, the power of cricket has done for the Hindi Movie genre channel Rishtey Cineplex. The channel has consolidated its position as the Hindi movie genre leader in the Broadcast Audience Research Council television viewership data for Week 11 (Saturday, 10 March to Friday, 16 March). All the five movie genre programmes for the week also happen to be the Nidahas Trophy T20 cricket triangular series in Sri Lanka.
Viacom 18 had formed an alliance with Discovery-owned DSport for Hindi language broadcast of the Nidahas Trophy triangular series in Sri Lanka. The association has worked wonders for Rishtey Cineplex.
India had won the series, defeating Bangladesh in an exciting final. The cricket broadcast had also enabled Rishtey Cineplex to register its best ever TV ratings – 707,855,000 impressions. Sony Wah (528,143,000 impressions) and Sony MAX (485,964,000 impressions), the traditional Hindi Movie genre leaders, are in the second and third position respectively.
Live broadcast of India’s victory on Bangladesh in the league game on Wednesday, March 14, has been the top programme in the movie genre with 15,386,000 impressions. India’s win over hosts Sri Lanka on Monday, March 12, (13,847,000 impressions), Sri Lanka-Bangladesh virtual semi-final on Friday, March 16 (11,316,000 impressions), the Kent RO Howzzat studio show during the India-Sri Lanka game on Monday (8,793,000 impressions) and the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh league game on Saturday (8,565,000 impressions) have been the top five shows for the Hindi movie genre.
The Nidahas Trophy has also been the most watched programme in the Sports genre. However, the numbers are far less than the Rishtey Cineplex viewership. Dsports, which consolidated its position at the top with 242,210,000 impressions (130,982,000 last week), DD Sports on strength of Nidahas Trophy (113,894,000 impressions), Sony Ten 1 (88,932,ooo) edging past FTA channel Stat Sports First (82,852,000) and SS 1 Hindi (36,506,000) are respectively the top 5 sports genre channels for the week.
Nidahas Trophy has also dominated the sports programming top five list with India-Sri Lanka tie on Dsport (9,772,000 impressions), India-Bangladesh league game on DSport (113,894,000), India-Bangladesh on DD Sports (7,300,000), India-SL on DD Sports (6,242,000) and Sri Lanka-Bangladesh virtual semi-final on Dsport (4,297,000) featuring in the list in that order.
Nidahas Trophy cricket yet again became the clincher for Rishtey Cineplex and DSports as the data will incorporate the viewership numbers for the high-octane India-Bangladesh final played on Sunday, March 18. The other channels have no significant cricket or sports to show during the week.
