IPL bowls out general entertainment and news viewership

Viewership of sports channels as well as Hindi movie channels has grown despite analogue switch-offs and power cuts in the last one month

Any doubts about the popularity of the Indian Premier League (IPL) can be laid to rest if the viewership of the 10th edition of the tournament, currently on, is taken into account.

Five weeks into the edition, the IPL has registered a cumulative reach of 386 million, a marked increase over last year’s cumulative reach of 335 million for the first 43 matches (first five weeks). The 2016 edition registered a cumulative reach of 361 million viewers for the entire tournament.

The average impressions in the fifth week were 21.5 million, compared to 16.6 million for the same period last year.

Understandably, the league’s TV success has meant a surge in viewership for Sony Max, the primary channel of broadcast. Since launch of IPL10, Sony Max has been the number one channel in the country across genres, beating Sun TV, which is the regular topper, by a significant margin.

However, Max’s surge has also meant that the Hindi movie genre saw viewership spike by 14 per cent since the launch of the latest edition. This is because Sony Max broadcasts both Hindi movies and sports properties such as the IPL.

Comparing genre viewership four weeks before and four weeks after the launch of IPL10, the data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) show that Hindi movies and sports have gained significantly from the telecast of the IPL.

Sports, in fact, has seen a higher jump in viewership than Hindi movies at 24 per cent, albeit on a lower base.

Apart from Sony Max, the IPL is broadcast on Sony Six (HD and SD) and Sony ESPN (HD and SD). While these two genres enjoy spikes, viewership of Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) has dipped six per cent, while news — both English and Hindi — has seen double-digit declines. BARC data indicate that in the four weeks after IPL10 kicked off, Hindi news viewership dipped 24 per cent, while English news saw a viewership decline of 40 per cent.

The viewership measurement agency said that historically the IPL had affected viewership in news and Hindi GEC and so the trend was comparable to last year. Measurement before 2016 cannot be compared because the agencies and sample panels were different till 2015.

Media planners, however, said they had factored in the drop in ratings for news and general entertainment during IPL10, when chalking out their plans for the April-June quarter. In terms of total viewership, there has been a drop of two per cent owing to analogue switch-over and power cuts in certain areas, but the shares of sports and Hindi movies have moved up one per cent and two per cent, respectively.