Eight episodes of Satyamev Jayate have been aired so far. Each has been gripping in its own way. I also love how Aamir Khan and the producers provide a way for viewers to donate money – either online or via SMS – to different organizations highlighted in each episode. Reliance Foundation provides matching grants.
The makers of this much-talked about TV series also have a great companion website at www.satyamevjayate.in. Each episode has a section of its own with a page that highlights its impact. For instance, here is the impact of the first episode on Female Foeticide. In addition to news articles, the impact page also visually lays out how many connections were made, community members joined, etc., as well as how much money was raised. Throwing all those raw donation numbers onto a Google Spreadsheet to create a couple of charts sounded like a good idea (yeah, I already know I am crazy, thanks! :))
Here is what I discovered in the form of two surprising charts:
(Funds Raised by Satyamev Jayate by Episode
Note: the eighth episode does not have any numbers yet)
The first episode, on Female Foeticide, holds the record for raising the most money at Rs. 13,074,907. Unfortunately, no other episode has gotten anywhere near this number so far. The second largest fundraising was during the Intolerance to Love episode which netted Rs. 4,015,435.
The most surprising chart was the comparison between funds that came via online vs. SMS channels. If one were to take a quick guess at which of these channels would raise more money, I would have gone with the SMS option. The reasoning would be that texting is so popular and internet penetration is quite low in India. You can see how wrong that assumption was with this chart:
(Online vs. SMS Fundraising for Satyamev Jayate)
Yup, funds raised through SMS/texting made a paltry 8.1% (Rs. 1,738,256.00) of the total amount raised. The lion’s share of giving was by online donors who gave 91.9% (Rs. 19,704,301) of the total Rs. 21,442,557 that has been raised so far!
You can see the raw data in this shared Google Spreadsheet. I will update the charts occasionally so we can see if these trends hold true. And, I will hold off on analyzing what this may mean until after the completion of the first season.
For the geeks, Satyamev Jayate seems to be using Persistent Systems to display various metrics and churn out those charts on its impact page.