Advertisers worried over sudden drop in IPL viewership rating

Some of the last-minute advertisers, who have spent close to ₹17.2 lakh for 10-second slots, are the worst impacted as the viewership of the first two weeks post resumption has seen almost 15-20% drop in ratings as per data sourced from BARC subscribers.

ET had reported that Star & Disney India had managed to book ad revenues of over ₹2,950 crore in the current season.

As per data, average match ratings for the latest week is lower than even 2019 levels.

Average reach and time spent per viewer (TSV) during the week on IPL have also dropped by over 15%, while the average reach for the last week matches (matches 36-45) was down to 72.4 million, compared to 82.4 million in the previous week and significantly lower than 104.8 million in the first leg (first 29 matches).

Email queries sent to BARC India and Star & Disney India for verification of viewership data did not elicit any response.

“Average rating (TVR) is now lower than what Star India had achieved in 2019 as well,” said a senior executive at a large media agency. “This week’s ratings dropped to 2.6 TVR, which has pulled down the entire event average to 3.8 TVR in the core TG (target group) of male 15+ audiences. Both average reach and time spent per viewer (TSV) continue to drop. Some of our clients are asking questions and may want compensatory ad slots on other properties or channels.”

BARC defines reach as the total number of individuals who viewed the event for at least one minute. Whereas TVR also accounts for time spent by a viewer along with the reach. For instance, a 5% TVR for a show denotes that either 5% of the entire audience saw 100% of the event, or 100% of the audience saw 5% of the show.

A source in the broadcasting company said that while there is a drop, it is unfair to compare last two week’s data with the first leg.

“First of all, there was momentum loss due to the break. Secondly, the games are not identical. There were many close-finish games in the first leg, but so far the second leg has been low scorer matches. Having said that, there is an overall drop in cricket viewership,” he said. “Total number of viewers tuning in to watch has come down across TV and even Hotstar. The concurrency is down.” As per the data, by the end of 45 matches, IPL 2021 ratings in 15+ male audience is down by 16% compared to the same number of matches in the last season, and down 2% compared to 45 matches in 2019.

The media agency executive said that the broadcaster is trying to improve reach by putting a couple of games on Star Sports First, which was initially launched as a free-to-air channel, but was converted into a pay channel later. It still has a higher distribution because of the low price. “They are saying that overall by the end of the tournament, IPL 2021 will fare better than 2019 as 2020 was an aberration,” he added.