Five seasons down, the Bachchan magic continues to keep audiences hooked on to Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).
KBC, which commenced its fifth edition in the middle of this month with megastar Amitabh Bachchan as the anchor, has beaten hands down viewership numbers recorded by newer reality shows such as ‘India’s Got Talent’ and ‘Just Dance’. What’s more, it has also zoomed past Sony Entertainment Television to becoming the second largest brand in the Hindi general entertainment space.
Data available with TAM said KBC 5 registered an average television viewership rating (TVR) of 4.84 points in the week ended August 27. Going by the television viewership monitoring agency’s statistics, this is nearly 60 per cent higher than the average TVR of 2.79 points recorded by ‘Just Dance’ (hosted by Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan on STAR Plus) in its second week. The viewership of KBC-5 is also significantly higher than India’s Got Talent (presented by radio-video jockeys Nikhil Chinapa and Ayushmann Khurrana) which had an average viewership rating of 3.55 TVR in its opening week and Fear Factor Khatron Ke Khiladi 4 (KKK 4) with average rating of 2.64 TVR.
TVR is a measure of the percentage of viewers watching a particular programme at a given point in time.
What is also interesting is that KBC in its fifth avatar has been able to grab more eyeballs than subsequent seasons of other reality shows. Big Boss 4, anchored by actor Salman Khan garnered an average TVR of 3.15 points as compared to 4.69 TVR registered by KBC 5 in the first two weeks.
The viewership for the inaugural episode on KBC 5 on August 15 has been way ahead of both KKK 4 and Big Boss 4 which have stood at 2.95 points and 4.83 points respectively, making media experts say that 11 years down the line KBC still has steam left.
In fact, in the week ended August 20, Sony overtook Colors (which beams India’s Got Talent) to become the second largest channel in the Hindi GEC space. This is soon after the launch of KBC on August15. Media experts point out that the viewership ratings for KBC 5 which had an average TRP of 4.54 in the first week had converted into higher ratings for the channel.