IPL 2 to attract more viewers than election coverage

The venue for the second season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) might have shifted to South Africa, but the Twenty20 cricket league will not miss out the viewership balls. Research studies by two media buying firms - mediaedge:cia and Maxus - say that the IPL will attract more viewers than the election coverage.

mediaedge:cia View
The aim of the mediaedge:cia survey was to ascertain the consumer involvement in Season 2 – in terms of the overall interest and the favourite teams and players, the impact of the change of venue, and how viewer time will be divided between the elections and IPL.
The sample size of the survey was 1,568 and it was carried out in 10 cities – all the eight team cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Chennai and Chandigarh) and two neutral cities – Nagpur and Ahmedabad.

The expected viewership was arrived at, based on the fact that IPL being in its second season; the level of television viewing in the downturn; the impact of the change of venue; the impact of elections; popularity of the teams and team owners and scheduling of the matches. The agency found other factors that would influence the viewership of the game – performance of home teams, favourite team playing, Indian stars playing, time of the match, which day the match will be held, team owners' profile and in-stadia atmosphere. Among the teams, Rajasthan Royals clearly tops the popularity charts, followed by Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders. While city loyalties in Chennai, Jaipur and Kolkata are strong, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Chandigarh and Mumbai need to up their loyalties.

mediaedge:cia predicts that the average TVR for the 56 league matches will be around 5.1, while the TVRs for individual matches in 2009 could be higher than in 2008. The first five matches are expected to garner 16 per cent higher TVRs than last year, while the next five will be at par and the others will be much lower than the first season. The first match, between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings on April 18, is expected to record a TVR of 9.4. Shubha George, managing director, mediaedge:cia, says, "There will be more IPL watched than elections for sure. But unlike last year when viewers just watched IPL during the time it was on, this year they might keep flipping between elections and cricket, so average viewership is likely to drop by 7 per cent."

Maxus View
According to Maxus, if an IPL match and the General Elections 2009 coverage happens at the same time, approximately 60 per cent of the viewers will prefer to watch cricket. The sample size of this survey was 120 and it was carried out in 3 cities – Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, The agency estimates that in 2008, IPL, over a course of 44 days generated around 300 gross rating points (GRPs), whereas the daily GRPs garnered by 25 news channels that covered the results of the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 were around 93. Comparing viewership generated over 44 days with viewership garnered over a day may not seem fair, but Maxus argues that IPL was telecast for only 3 hours and there was only one channel telecasting it, whereas in the case of elections, there were 25 channels involved, and they covered the declaration of results around the clock.

Maxus points out that "viewers can somewhat clearly re-collect that IPL is to be played on Max (the channel that belongs to Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd, which is the broadcast partner for IPL), but for elections, they are being shown everywhere." The study also points out that while viewers can get updates on elections intermittently, cricket fans are not likely to sacrifice live action once they sit in front of their television. It also say that the profile of viewers on IPL will be much better than news channels.

A Televisionpoint.com News