DD National is back in the game and how! Ever since the lockdown has been imposed in the country, Doordarshan started broadcasting the reruns of some of its classics. This also boosted the popularity of the channel, and it became a star overnight!
The channel became India’s most watched channel at the beginning of the month, and now, in the second consecutive week, the channel has broken its own records.
Doordarshan Breaks Its Own Records; Becomes Most Watched Channel For Second Time
As revealed by the data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), DD National has become the most watched channel for two consecutive weeks, breaking its own records. In the 13th week of the year, from March 28 to April 3, the channel received 1.5 billion viewership figures. This is the highest record ever created in the channel’s history, which was launched on 15 September 1959.
After this, DD National broke its own records in week 14, when it achieved its viewership figures of 1.9 billion.
Prasar Bharati, the government broadcaster and owner of DD National took to Twitter to announce the good news. Prasar Bharati tweeted, “DD National continues to be No. 1 for two consecutive weeks in a row.”
Broadcasts Of Classics – Ramayana, Mahabharata, Play Huge Part In Increased Popularity
A major chunk of the credit for this goes to the re-runs of the classics, such as Ramayan, Maharashtra, especially during this critical period when a lockdown has been imposed. In fact, the inaugural episode of Ramayana had an audience of 34 million, which is as much as a rating of 3.4 percent.
Additionally, the repeat telecast of the same episode got a viewership of 45 million Indians. The rating of the evening broadcast increased to 5.2 percent. As per reports, these were the highest figures achieved by any Hindi GEC program since 2015 according to the data released by BARC. Ramayan also went on to be rating juggernaut, which collected 61 million impressions in the 14th week of 2020. Mahabharata, on the other hand, garnered 16 million impressions.
The channel even went ahead of Dangal, which had the second highest viewership figures, about 1.03 billion impressions in the same time period.
DD National has emerged as the topper in both Hindi GEC Rural and Urban.