SET MAX sells most of IPL's on-air advertising inventory

With the remaining 10-12 on-air advertisements for each of the final-three IPL matches getting blocked for Rs 7.5-8 lakh per spot, SET MAX channel – the official broadcaster for the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2) tournament in South Africa – has sold almost all of its on-air advertising inventory to advertisers.

The effective 10-second spot rates for the semi finals and the final match are almost double of what SET MAX negotiated with advertisers for the first IPL edition held in 2008, media agency sources said.

However, tough negotiations from media agencies – coupled with an alternate line-up of popular forthcoming television events like the ICC Twenty20 World Cup on ESPN, among others – have managed to check any drastic escalation in the average effective advertising rates for the entire IPL 2 tournament, which stood at about Rs 1.75-2 lakh for 80-plus advertisers, the sources said.

Last year, the average effective spot rates for IPL’s inaugural tournament was around Rs 1.25-1.35 lakh. For the finals and the two semi-final matches of IPL 2, SET MAX had asked for about Rs 10 lakh for the 10 second spots.

“The broadcaster may be asking for any price for the last three IPL 2 matches, but the agencies have negotiated it to cost-effective rates for their clients,” says Anita Nayar, CEO, Havas Media, a leading media agency based in Gurgaon.

“Any broadcaster that has a property which evokes high viewership interest will charge a premium for its last few shows. Therefore, the handful of spots for the last three IPL matches are going for a 60-70 per cent premium over the average spot rates on SET MAX,” Tarun Nigam, executive director, India (North), Starcom Worldwide, said.

Multi Screen Media (MSM) – which owns SET MAX, among other channels – is expected to rake in about Rs 410-430 crore in advertising revenue alone from the current edition of the IPL, almost similar to what IPL 1 generated for the channel, advertising industry sources say.

Overall, IPL 2 is expected to generate about 40 hours of advertising time spread over the 59 matches, the highest for any television property so far in 2009.

The 51 matches of IPL 2, so far, have managed to reach around 350 million cable television viewers over four years and more, around 25 per cent more than the cumulative net reach of IPL’s inaugural tournament played last year, according to the latest data provided by ratings agency aMap.