 "Satyamev Jayate fails to crack TV screens, sizzles online")
The show’s second season has recorded 520 million impressions on digital. Its online fan community has doubled, too, from 3.98 million in the first season. Videos of Satyamev Jayate season-2 have recorded 17.6 million views online with 14 million hours of content consumption. The digital buzz has grown by 40 per cent in season-2 versus seasons-1, informs the company. The numbers are especially impressive considering that the last season had 13 episodes at a stretch, while this year’s figures reflect the impact of the five episodes that make up the first tranche of season-2.
However, media planners say the television viewership in millions (TVM) has seen a decrease. Says Karthik Lakshminarayan, COO of Madison Ultra: “There has been a drop in ratings by 25-30 per cent; this is primarily due to the length of the show, which is one-and-a-half hours instead of one hour in the last season. Also, the novelty factor has started to wear off, impacting ratings.”
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Media planners believe this was to be expected since the first season had the curiosity factor. Also, a show like Satyamev Jayate calls for emotional and mental investment from viewers and, thus, some amount of fatigue also sets in among the audience.
Season-2 registered an average TVM of 6.6 for the first three episodes among the cable and satellite (CS) viewers above four years of age (4+) all over India. These are simulcast ratings of the third episode aired on Sundays at 11:00 am across seven channels (Star Plus, StarPravah, Star World, Star Utsav, Star Vijay, Asianet and Doordarshan) along with the 1:00 pm original airing on ETV Telugu.
Star declined to give the TVMs of the last season, saying the metric as well as the measurement environment has changed.
“The show has reached 30 crore (300 million) Indians at the end of four weeks, this includes originals and repeats across the Network . As per TAM data for week 13, the show’s cumulative reach for the first four weeks now stands at 10 crore (100 million) viewers. (This when extrapolated to All India Universe, as per standard industry conversions, means that over 30 crore (300 million) Indians have watched the show.),” said a spokesperson of the channel. It is important to keep in mind the environment for television measurement has undergone a change over a few years. With the inclusion of less-than-class-1 towns, or LC1 markets, and the change in the metric of measurement, like-to-like comparison of ratings for the two seasons would not be accurate.
The show premiered in the second season with TVM of 7.4 million (CS4+, all India) and 6.7 TVM in the Hindi-speaking market (CS4+). The ensuing episodes saw a drop to 5.9 TVM(CS4+, HSM) in the second episode and 5.04 TVM (CS4+, HSM) for the third episode.
However, Star has managed to maintain the ad-rates thanks to the brand it built for the show last time. The same goes for sponsorship rates, which, according to planners, range from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh for a 10-second ad spot.
In fact, with ad rates staying constant and the show length increasing, the total ad revenues from the second season will be more than the previous season.
The talk show, which brought to the fore social issues such as female foeticide, child sex abuse and medical mal-practice in season-1, flagged off season-2 with a two-hour launch episode on rape and how the Indian society, judicial system and law enforcement system react to an instance of rape.
Having started on a bold note, the show caught the attention of the viewers on TV and on social media. This set the tone for the ensuing episodes, which then covered topics such as police and how they function in India, elections, wealth of the nation and garbage recycling. Also, this season will be telecast in three tranches or instalments rather than showing 13 episodes in a row.