IPL final, semis find more TV viewers than last year

The final match in this season of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament got 10 per cent higher TV ratings (TVRs) than the first season in 2008.

According to data from TAM, the TV audience monitoring agency, across six cities, the duel between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings on the night of April 25 in Navi Mumbai got a TVR of 12.9. The figure was 10.7 and 11.7 for the final matches in the second and first seasons of the league, respectively.

This year the TVRs were substantially higher, led by Mumbai (17.8) and Chennai (15.3). TVR measures the time spent seeing a programme.

Last year, the final match between Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Johannesburg had got ratings of 15 in Bangalore and 11.6 in Hyderabad. The semi-final matches of this season also witnessed a 25 per cent jump in the average reach over IPL-2, with 46 million viewers tuning in. This was nine million more than the previous IPL edition, played in South Africa.

According to TAM’s data, IPL-3 had a cumulative reach of 142 million cable homes in the country (in the 59 matches played), thereby recording a 40 per cent jump over the first edition, which reached 102 million cable homes.

However, the average tournament ratings for this season stood at 4.5 TVR, lower than those for IPL-1 (4.7 TVR) but higher than IPL-2 (4.1 TVR), showed TAM’s data.