While cricket lovers were glued to their TV sets in the night watching Shah Rukh Khan’s Knight Riders demolish liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers in the inaugural match on Friday in Bangalore, Sony SetMax catapulted to the number one channel in terms of viewership across all genres during the peak time of 8pm to 11pm.

That is because its share of viewership in television and cable homes around the country zoomed nearly eightfold to 16.8 per cent between 8 pm and 11 pm compared to the last few Fridays.

The average market share of SetMax (which is essentially a movie channel but is now showing cricket) for the last four Fridays in the same time slot was only 2.1 per cent, according to Audience Measurement & Analytics (a-MAP) which monitors viewership across TV channels. The agency covers over 35 million cables and satellite homes across the country.

The viewership of Sony SetMax during the three-hour period on Friday was way ahead of channels across the board.

According to the agency, the closest competitor was Zee, which garnered a market share of 7 per cent. While Star Plus got a market share of 4.6 per cent, 9X was at 2 per cent, Sony Entertainment Television — another channel from the group — at 1.8 per cent and NDTV Imagine at 1.5 per cent.

Speaking to Business Standard on the jump in market share for their channel, Sony TV India Head Kunal Das Gupta said, “It’s heartening to see such a response and it is a fulfillment of what we had expected. With this IPL is now a well established product on TV.”

Sony TV-WSG has bought the broadcasting rights of the IPL matches for a staggering $1.3 billion (Rs 4120 crore) for 10 years.

The combine has already earned over Rs 380 crore by selling advertising time in India and globally for the IPL matches this year. The 44-day tournament will see eight teams clashing in 59 matches.

The large viewership of IPL, according to industry experts, can be challenged only by Shah Rukh Khan’s new quiz programme “Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai”, which will be telecast on Star Plus from April 25 during the peak time of the matches (8pm to 9pm).