Backed by high TRPs reality talent hunt show 'Indian Idol,' aired on Sony Entertainment Television from October 2004 to March 5, succeeded in hitting ad revenues of saas bahu soaps beamed daily on Star Plus channel of Star TV. The Rs 1,750-crore advertising revenue market for Hindi daily soaps has fallen by about five percent in the last few months.

Apart from the grand finale, on March when it was the second most watched show on television after Star Plus' Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Th, the programme has been has been consistently achieving high TRPs since the first show was telecast.

Indian Idol garnered the maximum viewers in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. TAM figures reveal that 53 per cent of the total TV audience in North, West and East India watched the final episode of Indian Idol. The show saw a consistent rise in the ratings from October onwards and therein managed to increase the share of Sony. 21.8 on 7 January to 53.7 on 5 March.

Sony Entertainment television is gung ho on the response and is most likely to go in for a repeat of the programme.

With the success of Indian Idol analysts say daily soaps may be losing their popularity as viewer fatigue has set in. The broad product categories that are advertised in daily soaps are FMCG, banking, automobiles, food & beverage, telecom and lifestyle.

On the day of the finale of the Indian Idol programme TRPs of other entertainment also took a hit.

In the eight Saturdays preceding March 5 Hindi entertainment channels commanded a share of 71 per cent of the total channel pie while Hindi movie channels commanded 16 per cent, infotainment and English movie channels had 2 per cent each, kid's channels 1 per cent and news channels 8 per cent of the total advertising pie.

On 5 March the day Indian Idol was telecast Hindi entertainment channels' share went up to 85 per cent while Hindi movie channels share dipped from 16 per cent to 7 per cent, news channels pie fell by 3 per cent and children's channels viewership came down to zero from the 1 per cent the channels commanded on weekends.

The channels that lost the maximum viewers were entertainment channels (Star Plus) movie channels (Star Gold, Zee Cinema) and news channels (Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee News).

Now it remains to be seen if Sony can sustain these TRPs with the second coming of the Indian Idol.