A poster of the dubbed version of Jurassic Park III

Mumbai, July 2: After setting Indian cinema screens on fire, badi chhipkalis (dinosaurs), saanps (anacondas) and gigantic ships from Hollywood are swamping the small screen, making Hindi television go English with a vengeance — machine guns, virtual wars and all.

American blockbusters dubbed into Hindi have toppled Hindi films on “Hindi” movie and entertainment channels in the TRP race.

According to TAM, the television audience rating agency, which compiled a top 10 list over four months, three out of the four top slots in these channels were occupied by Hollywood hits, proving beyond doubt that Hollywood has entered the remotest Indian homes.

The figures show STAR Gold, STAR Plus and SET MAX increasingly reserving their prime slots on Saturday and Sunday for big Hollywood films like Jurassic Park, Titanic and Anaconda.

Heading the TRP list from February 1 to May 22 is Jurassic Park — The Lost World, aired on STAR Plus on February 21, with a TRP of 8.74 (on SET MAX Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham notched around 6 and Devdas around 4). At number three and four on the list are Jurassic Park 3 aired on STAR Plus on February 3 with a TRP of 5.43 and Titanic on STAR Gold aired on February 14 with a TRP of 5.39.

Bollywood only breaks in at number two — Tere Naam, a Salman Khan-starrer aired on Sony on March 20, earned a TRP of 6.83 — and occupies the six bottom slots.

Those four months could have been exceptional, for, in another TAM list compiled between April 25 and June 19, Speed is the Hollywood film with the highest TRP, at 1.85, and only ranks at number 16 in a list of 60.

But four out of nine movies on STAR Gold that made it to the list are Hollywood flicks.

While the trend has consolidated on STAR Gold, which started to show dubbed Hollywood films in its evening slot on Saturdays in 2002 and never looked back, the success of a Hindi-speaking Leonardo di Caprio or Arnold Schwarzenegger has prompted Sony’s SET MAX, “the channel of movies and cricket”, to join the dubbing bandwagon.

Starting last Sunday, it launched Hollywood Hungama, a Sunday evening slot for Hindi-dubbed Hollywood films that kicked off with Anaconda. The movie, also released in theatres in its dubbed version, earned revenues of more than Rs 18 crore in India, a spokesperson for the film’s distributors Columbia Tristar said.

SET MAX, which will rely on the library of its sister concern Columbia Tristar, rich in dubbed films that have already made it to the theatres, has films like Bats, Mask of Zorro and Hook lined up.