IPL 5 TV viewing figures ‘as predicted’

Rebecca Hawkes ©RapidTVNews | 30-05-2012


The Indian Premier League (IPL) cricketing extravaganza, which culminated this week with a win for Kolkata Knight Riders, attracted the anticipated numbers of television viewers in India, says market research firm MEC.
New data from Mumbai-based monitoring company TAM Media Research shows television viewership ratings (TVR) of 3.8 for SEC ABC 15+ from 70 of 72 lead matches. This reflects the predictions from MEC prior to the start of the twenty20 cricket tournament, reports Exchange4Media.
"We take pride in being able to correctly estimate the TVR for a tournament as high profiled as IPL 5. In spite of the negative press surrounding it, the quality of cricket in this year's IPL and the passion that Indians have for the game ensured a 2.5% increase in viewership from the last IPL season," said Shubha George, chief operating officer, MEC South Asia.
TAM's figures for programme rating registered 4.1, compared to MEC's estimate of 4.3. Off prime rates are also correspondingly higher.
"Though our predictions have been bang on, there have been some cumulative learning's as well this year. The new understanding we have from our analysis is that the time and day of the match has the highest influence on TV viewership ratings. Spikes for favourite teams, while existent, do not have a profound influence as estimated."
The eight-week fifth season of the IPL broadcast across India this year in high definition by an extended range of direct to home operators, namely Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Dish TV, and Airtel Digital TV, in addition to multi system operator Hathway Cable & Datacom. Coverage was distributed by MSM Discovery/The One Alliance - partner of Sony Television in India, which exclusively broadcasts IPL action on its Sony MAX channel.