Sunil Lahri, Prem Sagar back DD’s dodgy claim that Ramayan set world record for most-watched TV episode ever

The re-telecast of the 1987 mythological drama Ramayan, based on the epic of the same name, kept the viewers hooked during the lockdown. In a tweet, Doordarshan announced that the show created a ‘world record’ as 77 million viewers tuned in for the April 16 episode.

This dubious claim was followed by a Mint Lounge report which said that the finale of American comedy-drama M*A*S*H actually holds this record, with 106 million viewers. The report quoted the Chief Operating Officer of the Broadcasting Audience Research Council (BARC), Romil Ramgarhia, confirming while the figures cited by DD come from them, they didn’t make the claim made by the broadcaster.

HuffPost India reached out to Dipika Chikhila and Sunil Lahri, who played Sita and Lakshman respectively in Ramayan, as well as Prem Sagar (son of creator Ramanand Sagar, who also worked on the show), for comment.

While Dipika said that she was unaware of the news, Sunil and Prem were in denial. Prem claimed that the ratings were led by the ‘hand of God’ and said, “At a time when you’ve Netflix, Amazon, this is big. The idea is to bring it (the show) to this generation and teach them. To really bring them back into the fold of ideal living.”

Sunil credited ‘Netflix and Amazon’ for the record set by the finale of M*A*S*H in 1983, even though the streaming platforms came into existence more than two and a half decades later. “So in that sense Ramayana has created a bigger impact. It’s a world record in spite of so many options,” he said.

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The article says that Sunil and Prem ‘stuck to the claim that their show had created a world record’ even after being repeatedly told otherwise.

While the claim of Ramayan setting a world record is debatable, its re-telecast registered the highest-ever rating for a Hindi General Entertainment Channel (GEC) programme since 2015, when the BARC started measuring the television audience, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

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