Narendra Modi’s ‘Man Vs Wild’ premiere episode records 6.9 million impressions on Discovery

During a regular week, the leader in the infotainment genre, Discovery rakes in 3.5 to 4 million impressions. In week 33, (August 10 to 16, 2019) it shot up to 8.3 million impressions, an all-time highest for any channel in the genre. There is no guessing why this happened.

On August 12, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi featured in the popular franchise, ‘Man Vs Wild’. The host of the show and renowned adventurer, Bear Grylls made Modi sit on a makeshift boat while he himself, half-submerged, pushed it to the other side. “You must be the only Prime Minister to do that,” Grylls said.

Though the episode got criticised as “Not So Wild”, it certainly got the viewers hooked to it. Discovery shared a media statement where the network quoting BARC India stated that the premiere episode on Discovery raked in 6.9 million impressions while the time spent on the show was about 29.2 minutes per viewer.

“The historic edition of ‘Man Vs Wild’ made a larger point about the importance of wildlife conservation and sensitised people about environmental change. In that sense, it was much more than a TV show,” said Megha Tata, managing director – South Asia, Discovery. “We are the undisputed leaders in the infotainment genre; our aim is to extend the leadership further with pathbreaking programming,” she added.

A couple of days back, Bear Grylls, who also hosted former US President Barack Obama in his show, compared the social impressions of the episode featuring PM Modi with the last Super Bowl. His tweet read, “Officially, the world’s most trending televised event! With 3.6 billion impressions! (Beating ‘Super Bowl 53 which had 3.4 billion social impressions).

‘Officially the world’s most trending televised event! With 3.6 BILLION impressions!’ 💥💥 (Beating ‘Super Bowl 53 which had 3.4 billion social impressions.) THANK YOU everyone who tuned in! 🙏🏻 #PMModionDiscovery #ManVsWild #india https://t.co/OvfRD9EIcq pic.twitter.com/1E0HwiI6ME

— Bear Grylls (@BearGrylls) August 19, 2019

Facts as shared by Discovery:

The premiere on Discovery Network raked 3.69 million impressions, overtaking GEC leader Star Plus with 3.67 million impressions. (Source: BARC India; TG: All15+AB|Market: India Urban|12^th Aug’19: 9pm-10pm|Impressions)

The premiere also delivered the highest-ever slot reach for the infotainment genre with 6.1 million tune-in on Discovery Channel, which is 15 times more as compared to the last 4 weeks average of the same slot. (Source: BARC India; TG: All15+AB|Market: India Urban|12^thAug’19: 9pm-10pm |Reach)

The premiere slot performance grew an astonishing 50 times giving an unprecedented 93% channel share to Discovery channel amongst the infotainment genre. (Source: BARC India; TG: All 15+AB|Market: India Urban|12^th Aug’19: 9pm-10pm|Channel Share based on Impressions%)