After having almost exhausted themselves in the battle for Weekday-Primetime, Sony and Star are aggressively gunning for the weekend viewership. Media watchers would say that this is a logical step to extend viewership. But the broadcasters and advertisers must realize that media consumption pattern on weekend is very different from weekday. So before you bet your money, read this analysis.

Lets start by looking at what is planned to capture viewer's attention. Star has a holy line-up heavily relying on Mythological and religion. From 7th July, at 9 AM, is Jai Mata Ki. Hema Malini will perform the various avatars of Mata - Durga, Saraswati, Laxmi and others. At 10 AM, is a travel-to-Pilgrimage, Yatra. And Finally the third new show, Gurukul that captures some inspiring tales of ancient Indian Civilization. The programming objective is to "bring peace and tranquility to tired minds." Sony on the other hand has more mainstream entertainment line up primarily produced by Balaji Telefilms. So a very different strategies being planned.

Coming to understanding weekend viewership, a quick point stark statistic. The average top 20 programme TVR (essentially 8 odd soaps) during weekend, is as high as 13%, while the same for Weekend is a low 0.6%! Much less people watch the same show over the weekend than they do over weekday.

A closer look at the data tells us that weekend has two Primetimes.' Primetime 1' is late morning leaning into afternoon and 'Primetime 2' that is a tighter definition on traditional primetime. Refer Chart 1.

Chart 1: Weekend viewership - Two humps.


8 Week Avg Total TVRs by Genre on Sunday. 4 Metros. Aud: 15-44 yrs. M/F SEC ABC

A key characteristic of weekend programming on General Entertainment channels today is complete reliance on Hindi Films to boost night prime time ratings. Sony is currently playing blockbusters from Subhash Ghai's stable and other channels too keep putting a mixed bag of films.
As for the other genres, viewers with specific interest 'snack' on special interest channels through out the day. This is evident from relatively flat lines for these channels. The viewership pattern points at two opportunities for mass channels. The more important, perhaps, is an opportunity to build early afternoon band - 12:00 to 1:30 PM (refer chart 1 above). Across weekdays, this is a strong time band with women oriented original programming. If programming, for this time band, can be widen to include male member, this slot can be a killer. Another opportunity is 7-8 PM. Almost all channels slot Hindi Films after primetime, thus giving the window for 1 hour of soaps/ drama.

Looking at Age-wise break up of Entertainment channel viewership gives us another insight. That, over the weekend, viewership amongst youth dips significantly. Refer chart 2 below. The share of 15-34 Yrs in drops down to only 14% on Sunday, against 45% during weekdays. And that is a major drop! So while the overall viewership remains the same, Kids and Teens, and 35+ Yrs have a far greater share.