Last fortnight, the hundred-plus employees of MTV, the music channel from Viacom 18 (a 50:50 venture between Viacom Inc and Network 18), cut a 15 kg cake at their funky office at Parel in Mumbai. The occasion, as MTV's general manager and senior vice-president (creative and content), Ashish Patil, explains, was the channel's highest ever viewership in India.
So much so, the channel dared to compare its gross rating points (GRPs, the weekly total of the television rating points which is viewership into time spent) to general entertainment channels such as NDTV Imagine and Sab TV.
In the last three weeks, MTV's GRPs have risen from 79 to 81 to 83. In the final week, 5 million people tuned into the channel.
Its two reality shows, Roadies and Splitsvilla, are ramping up viewership numbers at a fast clip. Roadies has clocked a rating of 3.5 and above, while Splitsvilla touched 1.71 this week -- spectacular for shows on a music channel. Popular soap operas like Balika Vadhu and Bidaai notch ratings of eight to 10.
The performance is a show-stopper even if MTV India chooses its base audience carefully to arrive at these numbers. The channel looks at a narrow market -- 15- to 24-year-olds in the socio-economic categories A and B in Hindi-speaking markets with a population of 100,000 and more -- to flaunt its impressive numbers. (For the record, TAM Media's MTV GRP for cable and satellite homes in the Hindi markets, 15-year-plus viewers in all SECs was 33 for the period between March 15 and 21.)
Text: Shuchi Bansal
Image: A Splitsvilla constestant. | Photograph, courtesy: MTV
Also read: India's 25 best employers
Powered by 
| Live updates on money.rediff.com |
|
Advertisement
