Controversies or not, IPL rules the roost
The IPL controversy, including investigations into money management, match-fixing, team auctions and ownerships, hasn’t yet put a dampener on India’s viewership, establishing the Indian cricket fans’ enthusiasm for the lucrative league.
The IPL controversy, including investigations into money management, match-fixing, team auctions and ownerships, hasn’t yet put a dampener on India’s viewership, establishing the Indian cricket fans’ enthusiasm for the lucrative league.
If audience numbers on Wednesday — both at Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium and people watching on television — are anything to go by, the interest has not waned.
The semifinal between the Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore opened to a packed stadium. Piyush Pandey, head of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, who was at the stadium said, “The audience’s excitement and enthusiasm is strongly evident.”
Television viewership numbers, too, were very strong. According to viewership data recorded by aMap — the overnight television viewership measurement system — the top six metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad) registered a TRP (television rating point, a percentage of the total television viewership at that time) of 6.2 per cent.
The ‘Net’ reach was 19.1 per cent, at just under 84 lakh viewers. Net reach is the number of people watching a particular programme for more than one minute.
“IPL-3 has actually added to the highest ratings when compared to the IPL semifinals during the last two seasons. An increase of 13 per cent was seen from IPL 2 to IPL 3 and nine per cent from IPL 1 to IPL 2. There has been a 23 per cent rise in ratings from IPL 1 to IPL 3 (played so far),” said an aMap spokesperson.
On whether the ongoing IPL controversy had drawn more people to television news too, the average of all news channels’ daily GRPs (gross rating points — a total of TRPs for every channel during a specific period of time averaged) from April 5 to 20 doesn’t show much of a shift. Except on Sunday, April 18, when the GRP peaked at 31.7 points, the remaining days, after the controversy broke, have maintained similar patterns of viewership.
