As stay-at-home period runs into its sixth month, viewership tracking firm reveals Dil Bechara, Special Ops have emerged most popular film and show
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; August 26, 2020)

In a domino effect of sorts, the Coronavirus lockdown caused a shift in the entertainment consumption patterns of the Indian population. A country that has had more than its fill of dramas about shape-shifting serpents and family feuds turned to digital entertainment, thus discovering the grim journey of Hathoda Tyagi or rooting for Sushmita Sen as the unlikely queen of a drug cartel. As we enter the sixth month of lockdown, it is only fitting to determine which series and direct-to-web releases grabbed maximum eyeballs and dominated the mainstream consciousness.

Refusing to divulge numbers, Shailesh Kapoor, CEO, Ormax Media, reveals that direct-to-web releases, though a recent phenomenon in the Hindi film industry, found an eager audience. "Dil Bechara has been the top film by a wide margin, followed by Gulabo Sitabo, Extraction, Shakuntala Devi and Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, in that order. These are based on estimates," he says. The results are arrived at basis the social media buzz generated by each offering, its reach and appeal.

Even as Paatal Lok captured the imagination of the country post its May 15 release and Jitendra Kumar sealed his position as an Internet star with the endearing Panchayat, Kapoor reveals that it is, in fact, an espionage thriller that tops the list of the most-watched Indian web series. "Disney+ Hotstar's Special Ops fared the best. Amazon Prime's Paatal Lok comes second, followed by Voot Select's Asur." Amazon Prime's Panchayat and Disney+ Hotstar's Aarya round off the top five shows.

He observes that TV consumption increased by 40 per cent during the lockdown, with viewers tuning in to news on a daily basis. The top five television offerings between April and June, when old shows were being rerun, were Ramayan (Doordarshan), Mahabharat (Doordarshan), Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (Sony SAB), Mahabharat (Star Plus) and Shri Krishna (DD). "With fresh episodes being aired from July, Kundali Bhagya has become the most-watched show followed by Taarak Mehta..., Anupamaa, The Kapil Sharma Show and India's Best Dancer."

With an estimated 95 million viewers logging in to watch Sushant Singh Rajput's last offering, viewership tracking firm says response to Dil Bechara unlike anything they've seen
Mohar Basu, Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; July 27, 2020)

Albeit playfully, Sushant Singh Rajput found himself appealing to fans to purchase tickets for a previous release, Sonchiriya, if they wished to see him 'survive in Bollywood'. Unfortunately, it took his demise to assemble cinephiles for a final outpouring of love, as they whole-heartedly celebrated his swansong, the Friday release, Dil Bechara.

A whopping 95 million viewers logged on to Disney+ Hotstar within the first 24 hours of the film's release to bid adieu to the actor. The kind of traction that Mukesh Chhabra's directorial debut garnered outshone that of any other film, says Ormax Media, a viewership tracking and consulting firm.

Gautam Jain, partner at the organisation, tells mid-day that while the figures are an estimate, they could confirm that the opening was a massive one. That the makers decided to make the film available for viewing without a cost, also enabled them to achieve such a viewership. "If one wants to, comparisons could be drawn [between the viewership] of Dil Bechara, and that of [the much-acclaimed series] Game of Thrones, and this was possible even though the latter had a pre-existing viewer-base, while the film [did not]. Then again, Hotstar promoted Dil Bechara from the onset, marketing its release date and time well in advance. Viewers showed up in unison to watch it."

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh is certain that the film would have fared just as well as it did, had it released in theatres. "I would have preferred watching it on the big screen. It is beautiful, especially its ending. A good film will always find appreciation; [as it did with] films like Anand [1971], and Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se [1978], which also had similar emotional content."

Jain admits that a release of this order introduces more viewers to the streaming platform. "Not every Dil Bechara-viewer will become a [Hotstar] subscriber, but the number of people who are familiar with the platform has now increased," he adds.

mid-day reached out to Disney+ Hotstar to procure the official viewership data on the film, but did not receive a response.

Tracking A Film
* Ormax Stream Track records how often a film is being discussed across various social media platforms. It tracks a film from four weeks before its release, and continues to do so for four week after.

* Tracking involves keeping a tab on the number of times the film is mentioned, how often its songs and trailers are viewed, and how many hashtags are used.

* The system uses these measures to assign a number to it. This is called unaided recall. Before Dil Bechara, Gulabo Sitabo garnered the maximum buzz. Its unaided recall, a week before its release, was 22. That of Dil Bechara was higher, at 23.

* This difference becomes more evident when they measure the next two parameters, reach (the number of people who eventually watch the film), and appeal (those who like it). In terms of appeal, Dil Bechara stood at 82, while Gulabo Sitabo was at 66. The company says no film has got a score above 80.

Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; October 18, 2015)


Amongst the girls, it’s Katrina, who has been topping the list for five years, except for two months — May and June 2015 — when Deepika Padukone overtook her. However, the two are racing neck-and-neck. While Kat has cornered 34 per cent shares, Dippy has 33 per cent shares.

Another interesting finding Kapoor came across was that an older star like Amitabh Bachchan is ahead of Gen Next stars like Ranbir Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor, while Madhuri Dixit and Kajol rank ahead of Sonam Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor. “It shows that the fan following is built over the years. Also, if a film or show of the star is in the news, there is an impact, but it is only 10-20 per cent. The star may move from No 4 to No 3 for a month or two, that’s all. The rest of the ranking has remained pretty much stable.”

In the weeks before the release of "Dhoom 3", actor Aamir Khan got a message from his dentist, who was concerned that his patient's new film wasn't being promoted enough.

That was exactly what Khan, who plans the marketing of his films as meticulously as he prepares for roles, wanted to hear.

"When people are concerned enough about your film that they ask you why they aren't promoting it more, you know you've achieved what you wanted," the 48-year-old Bollywood star told Reuters in an interview.

As each big-ticket Indian film tries to outdo previous box-office records, shouting about the latest premiere has become routine.

Before "Chennai Express" opened in cinemas last year, actor Shah Rukh Khan appeared on popular reality TV shows, toured several cities and ensured newspaper coverage for the film. "Chennai Express" became the highest-grossing Bollywood movie, raking in 2.27 billion rupees ($36.6 million) in domestic ticket sales.

Six months later, "Dhoom 3" - the third instalment of Bollywood's only action franchise - has surpassed that record, netting at least 2.7 billion rupees ($43.5 million) by employing the opposite strategy. In the run-up to the film's release, the lead stars didn't do any road shows, and hardly any interviews or appearances on TV shows.

Instead, Aamir Khan was spotted in public wearing a fedora - which his character sports in "Dhoom 3" - for nearly a year before the film's release. Production house Yash Raj Films didn't release the official soundtrack, distributing 30-second video snippets instead.


"What was really innovative was that they held back on the music. Most movies rely on music videos for free play on radio and music channels, which ensures traction, but they took that risk," said Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a media research firm.

Kapoor's firm estimates that 420 seconds of "Dhoom 3" footage were distributed in the form of trailers and song promos before the film's release, compared with 700 seconds on average for big-ticket Bollywood movies. "Chennai Express" handed out 820 seconds of footage.

"We want you to enjoy this film in the theatre. If I have seen the song on TV 20 times and on YouTube 20 times, when it comes in the film, I have lost interest in those five minutes. But when you are seeing it for the first time, your curiosity is piqued," Khan said.

The other reason to skimp on music previews, Khan said, was to draw repeat audiences to cinemas with the spectacle of elaborate song sequences.

"These are the two things you do - you release the songs, you get them popular and you get a big first day. You go on big-ticket shows, you create awareness of a film, and you get a big opening. We got a big opening without that - that means our tests were correct. And 36 crores (360 million rupees or $6 million) is a huge opening. You cannot go higher than that," he said.

Figures released by Yash Raj Films this week show that "Dhoom 3" grossed more than 5 billion rupees ($80 million) worldwide, a first for an Indian film.

Aamir Khan often teams up with film producers to brainstorm on marketing strategies. In 2008, the actor ensured that ushers and food vendors at cinemas playing arch rival Shah Rukh Khan's "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" sported haircuts like his character in the film "Ghajini", which released the same year.

In 2009, Aamir Khan announced a nationwide treasure hunt for fans to find clues to the character he was playing in "3 Idiots". He was also one of the first Bollywood actors to promote films through reality TV shows, a formula he rejected for "Dhoom 3".

"The marketing team at YRF (Yash Raj Films) was terrified. They were convinced we were doing something disastrous. They wanted to go all out, and I am not blaming them," said Khan.

Kapoor of Ormax Media said heavily promoting a film like "Dhoom 3" could have increased expectations or given away a plot twist, affecting ticket sales after the first weekend.

"But since there was so much mystery surrounding the plot and the film, it carried on. It is only now, in the third week, that the content is catching up, and collections are falling," he said.

Bollywood might need to take a leaf out of the actor's book. For an industry that relies heavily on the first weekend for most of its revenues, marketing is a crucial tool, and not too many films innovate in that department.

"We need to realize that marketing a film is as important as making it," said Khan. "People think...our story, concept is unique, but when it comes to marketing, we will do the same thing that 25 other people are doing. It doesn't work like that."

INDIA TODAY