July 30, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): Imagine TV has found the going tough over the past few months, losing out its number five slot to SAB TV. The channel pinned its hopes on “Big Money’ to score over its nearest rival but the Big Synergy show has so far failed to live up to its billing.

The biggest problem though is fiction, which is the lifeblood of any channel. Imagine TV has long been struggling on this front. Last week, they had launched UTV’s much anticipated show “Rakt Sambandh’ that boasts of a multi-star cast, but the show hasn’t attracted much viewers in its first week.

“Rakt Sambandh’ opened with a TVR of 1.14, that’s not bad considering that most of Imagine shows average around the 1 TRP mark. However, the rating dropped below the 1 mark in the following days. The Friday episode saw a TVR of just 0.73.

Rakt’s competitors at the 10.00 pm slot, continued to grow stronger with Colors show “Uttaran’ leading the pack with a peak TVR of 6.02. Star Plus’ “Tere Liye’ also saw 12 per cent growth by maintaining an average weekly TVR of 3.5. The loser was Zee TV’s “Karol Bagh’, whose average TVR dropped from 1.9 to 1.7.

While “Rakt Sambandh’ didn’t get many ratings, Imagine TV is now just five GRPs behind nearest rival SAB. The latter dropped one GRP from last week’s 92. Importantly, Imagine gained six GRPs in this week.

Imagine will want its shows to better their performances or simply hope that SAB loses more ground.

–Mayur Lookhar/ Sampurn Wire