Ramayan re-telecast rakes up 170 mn views for four episodes, becomes highest watched Hindi entertainment show

Ramayan, the over three-decade-old TV series based on Hindu mythology, garnered 170 million viewers in four shows over the last weekend in its new avatar, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) said on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_7911531” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Still from Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan[/caption] 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. (Click  here  to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak here) BARC’s chief executive Sunil Lulla said the numbers notched up by the series was a bit surprising and called the move as a “brilliant” one by the Prasar Bharti. He said eventually, we will also see advertisers flock 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 percent, while a telecast the same evening had 45 million viewers and a rating of 5.2 percent. The show bettered its performance on Sunday, with 40 million and 51 million people watching it in the morning and evening telecasts, respectively.