IPL 2024 re-ignites fracas between TV and digital

IBDF president K Madhavan, who also heads Disney Star, said India is one of the few international markets witnessing consistent television growth despite digital media’s rapid expansion

Even with media reports of a possible merger between Disney Star and Reliance Industries-backed Viacom18, there’s no let-up in the battle for eyeballs and advertising revenue between the two just yet, especially ahead of the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League.

So far, for live sports, television reach and ad rates have remained high.

To underline the relevance of television, earlier this month, its industry body, the Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation (IBDF) issued a release claiming a 5.1% increase in TV viewership in the first eight months (April-November) of the current financial year. It claimed a 7% viewership growth in pay TV homes with 5.8 million households moving from Free-to-Air channels to pay TV and viewers spending more time per week watching TV over last year.

IBDF president K Madhavan, who also heads Disney Star, said India is one of the few international markets witnessing consistent television growth despite digital media’s rapid expansion.

Disney Star’s rivals said the IBDF release was clearly targeting the advertiser community ahead of IPL since Disney Star holds the TV broadcast rights while Viacom18 owns the digital rights to the tournament to be streamed on JioCinema. A Disney Star executive said the data was not specific to any one broadcaster and reflected the growth in TV universe. “It’s a message from all broadcasters to advertisers that TV is not a dying medium,” he said, declining to be named.

Media industry observers said unless Disney Star and Viacom18 merge, their fight up until IPL may be fierce. Kumar Awanish, chief growth officer at advertising agency network Cheil India, said 2024 augurs well for television as India will witness two mega events – the IPL and general elections. “These will escalate the ad spends on TV for sure. That said, it will not take away the share from digital media which is growing consistently. By next year, digital will equal or surpass TV ad spends in India,” Awanish said.

An earlier report by agency network Dentsu predicted that the share of digital advertising will surpass TV in 2023. Digital media’s ad share will touch 40% up from 35% last year, it said.

With IPL and general elections slated next year, total advertising is expected to grow between 12% and 15%, Awanish said.

So far, for live sports, television reach and ad rates have remained high. “However, JioCinema ironing out its glitches may see its digital reach explode during IPL,” Awanish said. The OTT service is readying innovative tools to target advertisers for the cricket league.

The latest analysis of 2023 ad trends on TV by TAM Media, which tracks ad volumes on the medium, brought mixed news for broadcasters. At a webinar by Market Research Society of India (MRSI) on Wednesday, TAM Media’s vice president, business partnerships, Anshu Yardi, said that overall television ad volumes declined 4% this year (January to December 5, 2023) compared to 2022. However, these were still higher than pre-Covid levels in 2019. Better still, ad volumes on live sports on TV grew by 8% in 2023 over 2022 and total advertisers on sports jumped from 111 last year to 140 in 2023.

Cheil’s Awanish said even though digital spends will overtake TV spends in a few years, it should not be seen as a war between the mediums as most broadcasters have a streaming business too. Besides, smart TVs are gaining popularity as they offer a large-screen viewing experience of all traditional TV shows with the convenience and control of a streaming service. “This is a rapidly growing universe attractive for advertisers,” Awanish said.

He added that though most new-age brands are heavily skewed towards digital advertising, going forward, more and more legacy media advertisers will split their ad spends 50:50 between digital and TV.

Right now, the two media are in an intense competition for a bigger chunk of ad revenue as digital too is slowing down. Internet growth in India has declined to low single digits and sales of smartphones have also slumped. Within digital, there’s a tug of war for advertising money among big platforms like Google and Meta, as well as e-commerce, gaming and OTT services.

Once the two impending mergers – Zee and Sony and Disney Star and Viacom18 – fructify to create a duopoly in the market, the duel between TV and streaming will end. Though whoever reinvents itself will be the winner.