Ramayan Re-Run: 170 Million Viewers Watched Four Shows Of TV Series Last Weekend, Says BARC

Mumbai: The over three-decade-old mythological TV series Ramayan, garnered 170 million viewers in four shows over the last weekend in its new avatar, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) said on Thursday, reported PTI.

This catapulted the Ramanand Sagar production as the highest watched ‘serial’ in the Hindi general entertainment space ever, BARC said.

The show was relaunched last Saturday amid the gloomy times of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of thrust laid by the government machinery to popularise the series.

BARC’s Chief Executive Sunil Lulla said the numbers notched up by the series were a bit surprising and called the move as a ‘brilliant’ one by Prasar Bharti.

He told PTI that eventually, we will also see advertisers flock to the series, which will be running for a few more days.

The inaugural show of the series on Saturday morning had 34 million viewers glued to their TV sets watching and enjoyed a rating of 3.4 per cent, while a telecast the same evening had 45 million viewers and a rating of 5.2 per cent.

The show bettered its performance on Sunday, with 40 million and 51 million people watching it in the morning and evening telecasts, respectively.