Beyond the boundary line: Female viewership up 18% this IPL season
With 40 per cent of the total viewership on the Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) coming from female audiences this year, the tournament has proved it continues to be popular with both genders. Female viewership has grown 18 per cent this year when compared to IPL 2017 (IPL season 10).
According to data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC), the impressions grew from 606 million last year to 717.4 million this year, in the first four weeks of the tournament (including matches shown on Doordarshan). Impressions refer to viewership, which is the number of people watching the tournament at any given point in its live telecast.
In comparison, the overall viewership of the IPL on the Star India network (All-India market with viewers, male and female, over the age of two years), has grown 14 per cent this year. This year, the IPL changed broadcast networks, moving from Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) to Star India. While it was telecast on five channels last year [Sony Max, Sony Six (SD+HD), Sony ESPN (SD+HD)] in two languages – Hindi and English, this year it is being telecast in six languages – Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali, apart from Hindi and English, across 10 channels on the Star India network. Select matches of the tournament are also telecast (with an hour’s delay) on DD Sports.
Experts believe that IPL’s format (T-20) and the entertainment element embedded into its production (both at SPN and Star) have helped make it more popular among the female viewers. “There are multiple things that have attracted more women viewers to the IPL (as compared to other cricket properties). It is appointment viewing, takes place in
the summer and is packaged in a way that it becomes more family entertainment than a sports tournament only. Over years, this positioning has strengthened. Even if you see the stadium attendance, there are a significant number of women,” says Indranil Das Blah, chief operating officer and partner, KWAN,
an entertainment agency with interest in sports marketing.
Estimates peg the contribution of female viewers to non-IPL cricket matches at less than 20 per cent. The only exceptions could be World Cup matches featuring India against rivals like Pakistan or Australia.
Another aspect of the IPL that seems to have worked to attract female audiences is the duration of the game. At around 3.5 hours a game, the IPL matches (or T-20 matches in general) are shorter than One-Day Internationals or Test matches. “We’ve seen that sports or tournaments with shorter duration (per match) find favour with female audiences. So even in case of kabaddi (Pro Kabaddi League), we see almost 35 per cent contribution by women audiences,” adds another industry expert.
While still significantly less than the overall average, the average time spent watching the tournament has also grown. From 31.07 minutes in 2017, women are now spending 33.09 minutes watching the IPL, a growth of seven per cent. Overall (All-India 2+), the average time spent on the IPL is over 50 minutes.
However, planners believe that while the IPL attracts more female viewers than other sports and tournaments, advertisers will still see the tourney from the male target group (TG) point of view. “This year specially, the reach in the Hindi speaking market has come down. So reach in the rural areas has taken a hit, where a lot of the female viewers would tune in. So while there has been an increase in viewership, it has come on the back of increased time spent, and not necessarily on the fact that more women have seen the tournament. Advertisers will continue to concern them with the male 15+ TG for the near future,” says a planner.
The top markets for female viewership are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh/Telangana, and Karnataka in that order. The pecking order remained unchanged from last year. The viewership is however more heavily skewed towards the urban markets. Last year, 56 per cent of the viewership among female viewers came from the urban markets. In 2018, this has gone up to 59 per cent.