DD's market share doubles

With the Commonwealth Games (CWG) drawing sizeable viewership numbers, the market share of Doordarshan (DD) has increased over 100 per cent.

While the share of DD National during October 3-5 peaked to an average of 2.92 points from a modest 1.3 points before the Games, that of DD Sports shot up from negligible to 1.63 points.

Television ratings (TVR) had peaked for DD National and DD Sports to 1.63 and 1.03, respectively, during the opening ceremony on October 3. TVRs represent the percentage of audiences aged over four years who watch a programme for a stipulated period of time.

Data available with TAM, a television viewership monitoring agency, reveal the viewership of the CWG 2010 on the DD network has been higher than that of the Games held in Melbourne in 2006. In the first three days, the Games being held in India had a cumulative reach of 33 million as compared to 7.7 million viewers the Melbourne Games had drawn in 2006.

A TAM spokesperson said the CWG 2010 has had higher viewership in the top six metros in the country than the Olympics telecast from Beijing and Athens in 2008 and 2004, respectively. While Beijing Olympics had a cumulative reach of 14.6 million in the first three days, the Athens edition reached around 14 million viewers.

Viewership numbers for individual sporting events also indicate that wrestling has drawn the maximum attention in the first two days, followed by weightlifting and gymnastics.

The average time spent watching the CWG 2010 on DD1 and DD Sports during the first three days has been the highest ever at 230 minutes. Time spent watching the Athens Olympics in 2004 comes second in the pecking order at 186 minutes, followed by 107 minutes for Olympics at Beijing. The Games at Melbourne in 2006 drew the least interest from viewers, with an average of mere 24 minutes.

Interestingly, in the Games being held in Delhi, total time spent watching around 13 sporting matches held across a host of sports – badminton, tennis, aquatics, gymnastics – on October 5 has been higher at 194 and 166 minutes on DD1 and DD Sports, respectively, than that recorded for the opening ceremony (52 minutes).

According to data with aMap, an overnight television viewership monitoring agency, CWG had an average TVR of 2.96 points in the first six days. The data are for all cable and non-cable households.