BENGALURU: Indians are cricket crazy – a cliché if ever there was one – but a cliché that makes itself evident every time there is a major cricketing event. And an event such as the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 is sure to attract eyeballs galore.

Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for week 23 of 2017 (Saturday, 3 June 2017 to Friday, 9 June 2017) - List of Top 10 Channels Across Genre: All India (U+R): 2+ Individuals revels the entry of three channels that air the Champions Trophy into its fold. Star Sports 1 Hindi at second place, DD National at ninth place and Star Sports 1 at tenth place entered this list, while Sony Max which had aired the T20 IPL season 10 that ended in week 21, exited the top 10 channels across genre list in week 23.

That the Champions Trophy is responsible for the high ratings of non-sports channel such as DD National is substantiated by the fact that two Champions Trophy matches – the one between India and arch rivals Pakistan and the one between India and its island neighbour Sri Lanka were amongst the top 5 most watched programmes for the Hindi GECand Hindi GEC – Rural and HindiGEC - Urbangenres in week 23 according to BARC data.Even in the case of the Hindi GEC – Urban genre, the Indo-Pak on DD-National match was the fifth most watched programme in week 23 of 2017.

Besides the channels that aired the Champions Trophy, one Tamil and Telugu GEC each and five Hindi GEC channels were also present in the list of top 10 channels across genres list for week 23.

As has been the norm, the Sun TV Network’s Tamil flagshipGEC Sun TV headed the list with weekly impressions of 1055.419 million, followed by Star Sports 1 Hindi with weekly impressions 777.806 million. Also from the Star India stable- its Hindi GEC flagship channel Star Plus stood third with 660.801 million impressions followed by Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) Sony Pal with 543.309 million weekly impressions.

Network 18’s Hindi GEC Rishtey was ranked fifth across genres in week 23 with weekly impressions of 532.853 million followed by the Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV with 522.673 million weekly impressions at sixth rank. Also from the Zeel stable was Hindi GEC Zee Anmol with weekly impressions of 490.769 million at seventh place followed by The Sun TV Networks Teluguflagship channel Gemini TV with 478.453 million impressions at eighth place.

DD National with 466.696 million weekly impressions stood ninth followed by Star Sports 1 with 462.214 million weekly impressions.