Ramayan, the over three-decade-old TV series based on Hindu mythology, garnered 170 million viewers in four episodes over the last weekend, the BARC said on 2 April.
This catapulted the Ramanand Sagar production as the highest watched serial in the Hindi general entertainment space ever, the Broadcast Audience Research Council said.
The show was relaunched last Saturday amid the gloomy times of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of thrust was laid by the government machinery to popularise the the series.
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 to the series, which will be running for some more days.
The inaugural show of the series on Saturday morning had 34 million viewers glued to their TV sets, and it enjoyed a rating of 3.4 per cent, while a repeat 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.
With inputs from: Press Trust of India (PTI)
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