The new Kapamilya superhero series emerged as the most searched primetime TV series on Google, beating its rival Kapuso show, Lolong.
While television ratings largely remain–as the primary gauge of a TV show’s popularity, some alternative measurements are starting to emerge to provide much clearer, more reliable data.
Of course, ratings generated by media research firms such as Nielsen Philippines and Kantar Media still serve their purpose, especially to advertisers. However, the emergence of streaming and similar non-linear platforms have been increasingly undermining traditional TV measurement.
Apart from the concurrent viewership on different streaming platforms, a reliable indicator of real-time audience interest in a TV show, or any topic for that matter, is the search traffic generated. People tend to look for something that sparks interest.
In both these departments, Darna, ABS-CBN’s newest series on primetime, clearly maintains a huge lead over its rival show on GMA Network, Lolong.
In terms of Web searches via Google, data from the past seven days (August 17-24) show that the newly-premiered Kapamilya show is ahead of any show airing on primetime.
Against Lolong, it maintains a wide gap–shown by the chart below.
Darna also scores lead across all Philippine regions, with Bicol emerging as its top bailiwick. Darna crushes Lolong in the region–94% against 6%. In Metro Manila, Darna score 92% against Lolong’s 8%.
Against four other local primetime dramas (Lolong, Bolera, 2 Good 2 Be True, A Family Affair), Darna emerges as the top searched show, taking around 80% of all web searches in the last seven days.
Google Trends also shows similar trends as far as YouTube searches are concerned. As its full episodes are uploaded on the platform every night, it does not surprise that Darna took the top spot.
Related searches showed how the audiences look for the show’s freshest episodes on YouTube. A segmented full episode of Darna reportedly garnered more than 30 million views on the platform during its first week.
Despite its lead in Google trends, Darna remains lagging in TV ratings, as its rival show, Lolong, continues its grip on the number one spot.
In fact, according to Nielsen Philippines overnight preliminary data for August 23, the Ruru Madrid-starrer pulled off an 18% people rating, or nearly twice Darna’s 9.7%.
