More importantly, most of these homes are in rural India, which houses 109 million of the 197 million TV homes we have. While about 38 per cent of BARC's sample of 40,000 homes is in rural India, the final viewership numbers are weighted to the universe; so DD Freedish gets huge weightage in the sample.
When the Big Four were on DD Freedish, invariably Zee Anmol, Star Bharat, and Sony Pal, among other channels, dominated Hindi viewership. Dangal TV was there too, at No. 9, till January this year. But since April, “People (on DD Freedish) don’t have anything else to watch,” says Divya Radhakrishnan, managing director, Helios Media.
The others are nondescript channels which operate on the fringes of the broadcasting ecosystem. Note that in urban India, the larger ad market, Star Plus remains No. 1, while Dangal TV is No. 6.
And that brings us to the question asked in the beginning. Is Dangal TV a flash in the pan or can Enterr 10 build something out of this? If any of the major broadcasters comes back on DD Freedish, can Dangal TV lose its perch?
“Dangal’s programming is appealing to the heartland. Also continuity works in GEC.
If other networks decide to come back, it will become competitive,” thinks Radhakrishnan. “Their time spent is higher than the lead erstwhile free-to-air channel — this is due to less fragmentation and competition in the (DD) Freedish GEC space,” says Vanita Keswani, chief executive officer (CEO), Madison Media Sigma.
Radhakrishnan adds that it is not just distribution that worked; the Indore-based Enterr10 is building up its content and management capabilities. Founded in 2004 by Manish Singhal, the company owns and operates four channels — Enterr10 (Hindi films), Bhojpuri Cinema, Fakt Marathi (Marathi films), and Dangal TV.
Last year it bought the entire library of Imagine TV, the erstwhile Hindi channel from the joint venture between NDTV and Turner. This included Ramayan, the show that is topping the charts on Dangal TV.
In March this year, Joy Chakraborthy, a media veteran who’s been with Zee and Star, among other firms, joined as CEO. He is busy putting together a team and plans for original content. So there are attempts to build something out of this.
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