Me, Darshit and TRP :)

'Pati, Patni aur Woh' trailer flashed on our TV in the evening with Rakhi Savant and Elesh also part of it. I grinned when instantly I heard a 'thup' sound. Darshit thumped his head! He was upset. Not because I watch such serials but because of people like me, the serials' TRPs increase! He used to crib on seeing me watch 'Rakhi ka swayamvar' show. But its not that I liked the show or Rakhi (no ways!!), I was just curious. But I guess many people were equally curious because 'Rakhi ka swayamvar' show earned the highest TRP of 3.5 in the history of NDTV Imagine!! And I knew.. I was to be blamed!!

But before I get the blame for the upcoming ' Pati, Patni aur Woh', I thought of finding out how I contributed to this TRP. And guess what.. I was shocked. Read on to find how TRP of a particular serial is calculated. I am sure even you will be surprised.

"Television Rating Points - TRP is the criterion that indicates the popularity of a channel or programme and this data is very useful for the advertisers
Presently, INTAM (Indian Television Audience Measurement) is the only electronic rating agency functioning in India. INTAM uses two methodologies for calculating TRP. First is frequency monitoring, in which 'people meters' are installed in sample homes and these electronic gadgets continuously record data about the channel watched by the family members. 'People meter' is a costly equipment, which is imported from abroad. It reads the frequencies of channels, which are later, decoded into the name of the channels and the agency prepares a national data on the basis of its sample homes readings. But there is a drawback in the technique, as cable operators frequently change the frequencies of the different channels before sending signals to the homes. It may be very misleading to read a channel according to a particular frequency even if the down linking frequency is same all over India.

Second technique is more reliable and relatively new to India. In picture matching technique people meter continuously records a small portion of the picture that is being watched on that particular television set. Along with this agency also records all the channels' data in the form of small picture portion. Data collected from the sample homes is later on matched with the main data bank to interpret the channel name. And this way national rating is produced"

Obtained info from How to calculate TRP

I was happy as well as shocked. Shocked because the so hyped TRP is trash! It is a vague approximation of a value which can be drastically different from reality and I strongly feel it is. Happy because I was exempted and was free to watch 'Pati, Patni aur Woh' :)

And so from now on I would like to give my TRPs to my fav serials:

1) Sarabhai vs Sarabhai (old one.. not aired currently)
2) Man vs Wild on Nat Geo
3) Young Turks on CNBC
4) Now Showing on CNN IBN
5) Lounge on NDTV Imagine

Just for fun, I asked my friends in office about their fav serials and unanimously received one reply 'Making of kingfisher calendar' on NDTV Imagine!!! Hahaha! I guess I should top that one above my list too :P.

You are welcome to add your fav ones too.