MUMBAI: Riding on the back of several close encounters and an engaging month long marketing campaign, the ratings for the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Max and Six have held steady.

According to Tam data provided by the broadcaster, the first five matches and the Opening Ceremony got an average TVR of 3.8 for CS 4+ TG All India market. It has managed a reach of 100 million.

Last time the first six matches and the Opening Ceremony got an average TVR of 3.9 but the reach was 78 million. The story is similar in the Hindi Speaking Markets (HSM) where the average rating this time is 4 compared to 4.1 last year.

Data provided by the broadcaster also shows that the Mumbai Indians matches are followed the most. The closely fought match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians got a TVR of 4.9, the highest so far for any match.

The Mumbai Indians versus Chennai Super Kings match got a TVR of 4.5. The first match last year which featured these two teams had crossed a TVR of 5 with a 5.5 TVR. Following the trend seen in previous years the early evening match had a lower rating.

The match between the Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils at 4 pm this time had a rating of 2.1. The Opening Ceremony?s viewership which featured the likes of Pitbull improved with a rating of 1.8 compared to 1.2 last year.

Multi Screen Media (MSM) president network sales, licensing and telephony Rohit Gupta said that the ratings were a combination of different factors. "Despite Tam?s panel expansion the event has done well. There is more buzz this time. The matches are closely fought. The stadiums are packed. On the ad inventory front we are more or less sold out. We have got 11 sponsors."

He adds that the IPL has hit Hindi GECs. "If you see the ratings of other channels like Zee, Colors, and Star have been hit. ?Dabangg? would have contributed 28-30 GRPs for Star. If you take that away then Star has taken a big hit."

Vivaki Exchange CEO Mona Jain said that the event has stabilised. "There is a lot of paraphernalia happening around it. It is getting into the primetime viewing of homes. People want to be clued into the hot topic of the day which is the IPL. Also cricket has gotten a fresh lease of life after India beat Australia."

Max EVP and Business Head Neeraj Vyas reveals that not only has the reach of the property gone up, the time spent has also remained steady at 24-25 minutes. The reach, particularly, has been encouraging as the tournament happened in the backdrop of 38 cities going digital in Phase II, adds Vyas.

MSM has already sold 90 per cent of its inventory for tournament with 11 sponsors on-board which include Pepsi and Vodafone as co-presenting sponsors with Tata Photon, Samsung Mobile, Panasonic, Havells, Usha Appliances, Karbonn Tablets, Godrej, and Parle as associate sponsors.

MUMBAI: The wait is over as cricket?s biggest extravaganza is back with a bang and there are a lot of new things to look forward to. For those uninitiated, the cash-rich league has got a new title sponsor in Pepsi, a new franchise in Sunrisers Hyderabad and has found a new home in Sony Six which will simulcast the event along with sister channel Sony Max.

Multi Screen Media (MSM), IPL?s broadcast rights partner, is sitting pretty this year having roped in 11 broadcast sponsors unlike last year when the broadcaster had to go into the tournament with unsold inventories as it refused to bow down before the advertisers who were asking for rate reduction.

The broadcaster had this year played the volume game by rationalising ad rates by 10 per cent. The reduction in ad rate did the trick with old sponsors like Samsung and Godrej coming back on-board and new ones like Parle jumping on to the IPL bandwagon.

The co-presenting sponsors are Pepsi and Vodafone while the nine associate sponsors include Tata Photon, Samsung Mobile, Panasonic, Havells, Usha Appliances, Karbonn Tablets, Godrej, and Parle.

MSM president network sales, licensing and telephony Rohit Gupta told Indiantelevision.com that 90 per cent of the inventory had been sold out, at the time of writing. The remaining inventory will be sold at later stage of the tournament at a premium.

?We have got 11 sponsors on-board this year and have sold 90 per cent of the inventory. We have seen a growth of 25-30 per cent. We have also expanded our advertiser base due to entry of new advertisers and the return of old advertisers due to rate reduction,? Gupta asserted.

Encouraged by the response, the broadcaster has increased spot buy rates to Rs 500,000 per 10 second spot, says Gupta. It has also hiked spot rates for semi-finals as well as the final match to Rs 1.5 million per 10 second spot compared to Rs 1-1.2 million last year.

Vivaki Exchange CEO Mona Jain had earlier told Indiantelevision.com that the broadcaster will earn Rs 8.5 billion in ad revenue up Rs 1.5 billion from Rs 7 billion last year.

The good news for the broadcaster is that average television rating for the IPL is expected to increase 2.6 per cent to 3.9 TVR for CS15+ years, Male/Female, SEC ABC, as per MEC. Mumbai Indians (4.5 TVR), Kolkata Knight Riders (4.2 TVR) and Chennai Super Kings (4.1 TVR) games are projected to have the highest ratings.

It?s been a mixed bag for Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) though. While it had managed to strike a huge title sponsorship deal with Pepsi valued Rs 3.96 billion over a period of five years it has been unable to retain associate on-ground sponsors with the sole exception of Vodafone.

With Citi, Hero MotoCorp, Volkswagen, Karbonn Mobiles and Fly Kingfisher refusing to renew deals for different reasons the BCCI had to scout for new sponsors that saw Yes Bank and Star Plus coming on-board.

IPL on the go

The consumption of IPL is not just happening on television. The digital medium is slowly gaining traction among discerning consumers and the direct beneficiary of this alternate viewing is Times Internet Limited (TIL), the new media arm of Times Group, which has the global digital rights of the IPL including radio, internet and mobile.

TIL recently renewed its partnership with YouTube for 2013 and 2014 that will enable it to stream all 76 matches of IPL season 6 on its over-the-top (OTT) platform Boxtv.com and its dedicated YouTube channel youtube.com/indiatimes.

As part of the deal, YouTube will also have exclusive live-streaming rights for desktop web viewing (with a five minute delay in India) and non-exclusive rights for mobile viewing through the 2013 and 2014 tournaments.

India?s leading mobile TV service nexGTv has also bagged the official mobile streaming rights of Pepsi IPL 2013.

?IPL has been a big driver for us, in steadily engaging and growing our young, sports savvy users over the last two years, ? says TIL CEO Satyan Gajwani. ?We saw a 43 per cent growth in audience base just last year on IPL online. Our partnership with YouTube is strategic in building supplementary touch points with these audiences and we?re happy to renew our association with it.?

Then there is huge activity that BCCI has planned for Twitterati by coming up with initiatives which will allow Twitter users to have their tweets broadcast on television. That is surely going to set the Twitter universe abuzz with activity around IPL 6.

Opening ceremony

At the time of writing, there was a mad scramble for tickets to attend the opening ceremony at the Salt Lake stadium in Kolkatta. Llive performances from a medley of international artists including music sensation Pitbull along with flying drummers, Chinese percussionists, awesome fireworks and some of the biggest Indian film stars including Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone kept the audience swaying in their seats.

It set the tone for Season 6 of IPL, the subcontinent?s biggest entertainer, which is slated to see the who?s who of the corporate, cinema, political, cricket worlds pouring into watch the action on the field. And hundreds of millions of viewers in India and worldwide who will tune into their TV sets or online or on their handphones.

MUMBAI: With broadcasters upping investments on content and marketing, monetisation from multiple streams becomes crucial in a digitised market.

Multi Screen Media President Ad Sales Rohit Gupta feels the key in a digital market will be to create customised content that suits the need of a specific demographic and market.

The addition of LC1 markets to TAM panel will increase their weightage vis-a-vis the four metros. It will also force broadcasters to rethink their content strategy towards these markets.

?Digitisation is key challenge for broadcasters. Monetisation of content is key. With addition of LC1 markets, their weightage has gone up. Creating different content for different type of audiences will be the key,? Gupta said during a panel discussion on ?Revisiting Content in Digitised Space and Impact of Ratings in the Changed Scenario?.
Gupta said television as a medium has seen phenomenal growth to become the biggest medium but it remains under-indexed when it comes to ad spends.

?We are adding 15 million consumers every year but we are still under-indexed vis-a-vis advertising revenue growth. Broadcasters are not getting the benefits of additional eyeballs,? he added.

Gupta said it?s high time that the industry works together to create a new television measurement system. A new system is in the interest of both broadcasters as well as media gencies.

Disney UTV Media Networks CEO MK Anand said the ad revenue led business is here to stay. It will co-exist with subscription driven business model.

?The advertising revenue led model is here to stay. Ratings are not anti-thetical to the broadcast business. Digital Addressable System (DAS) will lead to two kind of broadcasters - one who are subscription led and the ones who are advertising revenue led,? he said.

According to Anand, broadcasters irrespective of the genre have to work hard in a digitised market. The packages that MSOs design will also be of paramount importance.

Time spent in digital homes has increased due to bucketing of content genre-wise, he added.

IndiaCast Group COO Gaurav Gandhi said digitisation will change three things: it will change economics, choice of services and accountability and measurement.

?The cost of content has gone up considerably, it?s on par with international markets. But the revenue growth is not sufficient,? Gandhi said.

Broadcasters will also have to look at other revenue models apart from advertising and subscription to monetise their content.

Natpe President and CEO Rod H Perta said the problem of inadequate measurement system and fragmentation of market is not unique to India. US too has gone through the same path.

Digitisation, he said, will lead to emergence of new business models and opportunities. The question is whether broadcasters are ready for this change, he asked.

He said ratings are an equally ?contentious? issue in US but the market over there has matured and advertisers now don?t just look at ratings while making advertising decision.

?In fragmented markets, advertisers don?t just look at ratings. They also look at the quality of content,? Perta contended.

TAM India CEO LV Krishnan said the issue of reliability of data comes only when the ratings starts falling. Broadcasters, he said, don?t complain when the numbers are in their favour.

He said viewership measurement in multiple-screen era will go from platform-centric to becoming platform-agnostic.

?It doesn?t matter which platform the content is consumed. Parameters will change as content consumption will happen on different platforms,? Krishnan said.

Fremantle Asia MD Paul O Hanlon said, ?We have to rethink the way we produce content which made us look at different formats in different ways and segment it to make it flexible for broadcasters.

?The cost of content is going up, so we have to rethink the business model. We are looking at different ways to monetise content like AFP and not just remain dependent on broadcast fee.?