MUMBAI: Sony’s magnum opus Porus has been the talk of the town–first for being the first show wherein the IP is with the creator and later for its not-so-spectacular viewership. In fact, rumour mills were abuzz that the show would struggle to shrug off its sluggish start and build on its viewership. Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data for the show, however, paints a different picture.

According to the data, the ratings (U+R) of the show are significantly higher than the ratings of the channel’s prime time daily soap Rishta Likhenge Hum Naya (Rishta Likhenge) and another prime-time show Vighnaharta Ganesh. While Porus is aired at 8.30 pm, Vighnaharta Ganesh precedes it at 8 pm, whereas Rishta Likhenge is shown at 9 pm on weekdays.

Porus’ launch week bagged it 3.6 million impressions in week 48 of 2017’s BARC data. The second week saw a drop of 0.6 million impressions. After 10 weeks of being on air, the latest ratings of week 5 for 2018 show Porus at a consistent 3.3 million impressions.

On the flip side, the week 48 of Vighnaharta Ganesh garnered 3.4 million impressions and Rishta Likhenge got 1.9 million impressions. There was no impact of Porus on Vighnaharta Ganesh’s ratings that was apparent in week 49, whereas Rishta lost 0.1 million impressions from week 48.

Swastik Productions founder Siddharth Kumar Tewary says, "Porus has been consistent in its ratings since its launch and this was our plan to be consistent in the beginning and then grow slowly. We held on to our ratings from the beginning to now. The first episode was a one-hour content and now we are showing 22 minutes content.” He says that comparing the current 3.3 million figure with the initial 3.6 million one shows that the show has actually grown. “We have made Porus with a huge amount of conviction. People have really appreciated us for keeping the promise of giving them differentiated concept and the way of storytelling,” he adds.

“Porus is a premium product. We have been happy with the viewership we have got and we are expecting it to grow up by 20 percent from February onwards,” said Sony Entertainment Television EVP and business head Danish Khan. During the ten weeks, the highest impressions that Vighnaharta Ganesh holds is 3.8 million impressions, Porus has 3.6 million impressions, and Rishta has 2.1 million impressions.

SonyLiv EVP & digital business head Uday Sodhi says, “Porus is very popular and among the best performing shows like Taarak Mehta, Yeh Un Dinon Ki Baat Hai and Super Dancer on SonyLiv. The scale and impact of the show is amazing. It is perfect for digital audiences and it is able to capture the scale & the size fruitfully. We are seeing significant consumption of the show on SonyLiv. There is a huge jump in the month of January over December. The viewership of Porus has grown 30 per cent in January as compared to December.” 

Porus has successfully travelled to Sri Lanka with a new name Digvijaya. The buyer for the 260-episode series is Maharaja Television (MTV) and the show will be dubbed in Sinhala. Earlier, Porus was acquired by Workpoint Entertainment of Thailand for exclusive TV and non-exclusive digital rights.

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