Comedy shows slip in ratings as they fail to keep audience hooked

The results of the comedy war between Chutki and Kapil Sharma are out. The latest ratings have revealed that the newly launched show Mad In India failed to outshine the popularity of laugh riot Comedy Nights With Kapil on Colors. 
It seems like the sudden spate of comedy shows on various entertainment channels have led to an overkill of the genre. 

According to TVT data sourced from TAM subscribers last week, the latest ratings of Comedy Nights featuring Kirron Kher and Malaika Arora received 8.5 millions viewership while Star Plus' latest offering to the comedy genre Mad In India, featuring Govinda and Karishma Kapoor received net viewership of 3.2 million. 

Followers of comedy shows have been inquisitive about Sunil Grover's new drag avatar Chutki in his talk show Mad In India ever since he made an exit from Comedy Nights With Kapil, where he played the character Gutthi. Despite the hype and publicity, the show anchored by Manish Paul opened to a dismal response. The opening episode of featuring Baba Ramdev, received 5.7 TVM (Total Viewership in Millions) while Kapil's show's average rating got hiked to 9.6 TVM the same week.opened to a dismal response. The opening episode of featuring Baba Ramdev, received 5.7 TVM (Total Viewership in Millions) while Kapil's show's average rating got hiked to 9.6 TVM the same week. 

"Comedy needs regular innovation, and the makers need to constantly come up with innovative ideas to retain the interest of the audience. Popularity of the shows are specific to each stand-up comedian's fan following," said Krishna Abhishek, who has been part of Sony's show Comedy Circus, the top ranked comedy show for the last seven years. With the onset of several comedy shows, Sony's Comedy Circus has seen a steep downfall in the ratings. The show which features artists such as Krishna Abhishek, Bharti Singh, Rajeev Thakur, among others, receives an average viewership of 1.5-1.8 million. 



SAB's long running popular daily soap Taarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashma has also witnessed a slight drop in viewership, lately. Positioned among the top ten shows on TV, Taarak received average viewership of 7.3 TVM in the last few weeks, as opposed it's once average viewership of 7.7 - 7.9 million.

Sunil Grover had a better platform with me: Kapil Sharma

Star comedian Kapil Sharma has faced the ire of Colors, the channel airing his hit show Comedy Nights With Kapil, after he said that he will cut down his involvement with the comedy show in order to further his movie career. 

However, Kapil remains unperturbed by the allegation and says that having a bi-weekly show is too much of pressure. 



In an interview with a leading daily, Kapil was quoted saying, "Now that I have signed a film, it will be difficult to devote so much time to the show. I have communicated my decision to the channel. I hope they understand and take a call." 
Also, putting to rest all questions regarding his differences with Sunil Grover, he said that they still talk and are very warm towards each other. He went on to say, "The reason Sunil left my show was because he was getting many attractive offers and decided to move on." 

However, he did not have anything special to say about Sunil's show Mad In India and said that it lacks charm. 

He added, "Sunil had a better platform with me. There was something special when we worked together. I even had a chat with him on this before he left." 

Kapil also talked about his apparent back problem due to which he walked out of the inaugural event of the Cricket Celebrity League because he was not given a vanity van. He said, "I was asking simply for the basic amenities. Then, my back pain aggravated and I was forced to leave. The next day the headlines were screaming, 'Kapil ne liya Salman se panga.' Baap re!" 

Kapil will make his film debut with Yash Raj Films' (YRF) "Bank-Chor", which will go on floors in April.