Closely following a top management churn, Star India's top three shows - part of the famed "K" serials - have seen their television rating points plunge 20 to 30 per cent.
The sudden dip in TRPs has been caused by a larger sample size that TAM, the viewership monitoring agency, started using two weeks ago.
From January 1, TAM's peoplemeter homes have increased from 4,500 to 7,000 and it now covers 145 cities instead of 73.
TAM has also updated the number of cable and satellite homes to 68 million from the 41 million figure it was using as the base to analyse viewership data.
Overall, Star Plus's gross rating points, that is, the sum of its programme ratings during the week, have also plunged from 518 in December to 403 this week.
"Though other entertainment channels have also seen a decline in viewership, the drop for Star Plus is more dramatic," said Joy Chakraborthy, executive vice-president, network sales at Zee.
Zee's gross rating points also dropped from 240 in December to 217 in the current week. TRPs of serials on Zee and Sony are also lower.
To be sure, Star's rivals are pleased to see the leader lose viewers. "Earlier there was too much emphasis on Mumbai. New markets are now being represented in the new data and Star Plus may turn out to be just an urban phenomenon. Does it mean that advertisers were paying a premium for ratings that did not exist?" said Sony Entertainment Television executive vice-president Rohit Gupta.
A media planner said the new ratings for channels might open up a can of worms in the media industry. "Advertising deals between channels and brands may be re-opened and re-negotiated on the basis of new TRPs."
But Star India's advertising sales president Paritosh Joshi is not worried. "It is too early to draw conclusions on the basis this data. Any syndicated panel research takes time to settle down. Reading too much meaning into it is a hysterical reaction," said Joshi.
