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Ladies and gentlemen, this will not be good news to some of you. That some of you I am referring to are those who work with other television stations and you should know, if you don�t know yet, that there is a new sheriff in town who wears green and he is here to kick some behinds! The news is that UTV is the number one television station in the two major markets of Accra and Kumasi respectively in terms of share of viewership as well as the small market of Cape Coast. We have all been toying with the idea that given how they have been growing, UTV was likely to upset the apple cart. How soon that would be was open to conjecture; but for sure all close observers knew the station was drawing the audience to its side and it would affect the industry somehow. Earlier this year when I was reviewing the performance of the radio station in 2013, I did say that with the rapid growth of its audience share it was likely that UTV will post a problem to the big names in the industry very soon. �Hope they can keep this momentum in the year 2014, although I don�t think that will be good news to the likes of TV3, Viasat 1, Metro TV, and GTV (What about we give these group a moniker? Say The Sky Four?) as that will be a big threat to their audience share and budgets,� I wrote. I have been looking at the January figures for television viewership as released by Ipsos (former Synovate) and it would interest you to know that UTV is the new market leader in many respects. This is the data that is used by many industry players and as much as it has its faults, the alternative is mere conjecture by anybody, so we use it. In the latest issue, which was released in January, all the figures show that the gut feeling of UTV stepping up to plate to be a force in the industry is not altogether right. It shows that they far exceeded what was expected and where they had been positioned to be. Indeed what people think is the only strength of the station is way beyond that. The telenovela is not the only time that the station has been kicking the others, but also on most other time belts they have shown very strongly. The Ipsos report covers five main regional capitals namely Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Sekondi and Tamale and the report measures two main parameters of Share of Viewership and Reach. That is, what percentage of the market do you have relative to other stations and how many audience do reach on your own. Here is the killer, according to the report, in most of the regions that the station operates, UTV was the leader with share of audience while in terms of reach they compete strongly with TV3 in all the markets they are and even lead in some markets. The report had figures for all the five weeks of the month of January. Maybe I should share with you some of the figures for the top five stations share of viewership (let�s use SOV loosely) in the four markets in which the station operators to give you a view of what I have been talking about. In the Greater Accra Region week one SOV: UTV 23%, TV3 18%, Viasat1 13%, GTV 8%, and Metro 8%. Week two: UTV 29%, TV3 15%, Viasat1 13% GTV 10% and Metro 7%. Week three: UTV 21%, TV3 17%, Viasat1 14%, GTV 12%, and Metro 8%; Week Four UTV 24%, TV3 20%, Viasat1 14%, GTV 10% and Metro 7%, Week Five UTV 21%, TV3 17%, GTV 13%, Viasat1 12% and Metro 6%. Clearly and with an average of 23+% and with the next strongest station having an average circa 17%, UTV is by far the number one station in the nation�s capital as far as share of viewership is concerned. Still on SOV in Kumasi - Week one, UTV 25%, TV3 32%, Metro 10% Viasat1 9% and GTV 8%, Week two - UTV 24%, TV3 22%, Metro 10%, GTV 10% and Viasat1 9%, Week three, UTV 24%, TV3 22%, Metro 10%, GTV 9% and Viasat1 9%, Week four, UTV 24%, TV3 23%, Metro 10%, GTV 9% and Viasat1 8%, Week five, UTV 26%, TV3 22%, Metro 11%, GTV 10% and Viasat 9%. Again considering that UTV has an average share of viewership of 24.6% and the next closest is TV3 with 22.2% it is obvious that UTV is the leader in Kumasi just as it is in Accra. Let me quickly add that UTV tops in Cape Coast as well with average SOV of 27.4% against TV3�s 25.7% while in Sekondi UTV plays second fiddle to TV3 with an average of 18.8% SOV against the latter�s 23.3%. UTV was not in Tamale at the time of putting this report together and so the competition in that market was a keen one between TV3 and Viasat 1. I will try to share the reach figures in subsequent publications. If you need to be reminded, UTV has been here only for less than two years. In 2012 UTV entered the market and not long after it started test transmission, the unfortunate incident at Achimota where the building housing Melcom occurred. The station latched on this and considering they didn�t have to show for content anyway, they dedicated a lot time to cover this incident - that kind of established the station. The station had established, just like its cousins in the lower echelons of the building they occupy , Peace FM and Okay FM, that their language of broadcast would be Akan. In 2013 they introduced many new content including news programmes that used Akan exclusively to broadcast. Just like the other stations that needed viewership numbers, UTV stated to show some telenovelas and then they hit a pot of gold with one of them � "Corazon Indomable", also known as "Wild At Heart started airing on the station from July, 29 and it was an instant hit.