IPL draws a huge audience, breaks past records

By second week, IPL reached more viewers than it has done cumulatively in past 10 seasons

The tenth season of Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) drew record viewers in the second week, even though numbers have come down a notch when compared to the the first week of the tournament. Showing a 33 per cent jump over last year, IPL 10’s second week averaged 22.9 million impressions (for matches four to thirteen), compared to 17.2 million impressions last season. 

The reach (total viewers to sample the tournament on TV for at least one minute) for IPL 10 is a record-breaking 295 million viewers in the first two weeks. To put it in context, the cumulative reach for the IPL in its ten seasons (including the current one), has never reached 295 million. And this further implies that the tournament could finish this year with a cumulative reach of more than 350 million. 

While the reach and impressions in million give an idea of the width of the viewership, a 41 per cent growth in the average time spent per viewer from 48 minutes in IPL 9 to 67 minutes in IPL 10 indicates greater stickiness for the matches. This is good news for advertisers who have bought ad-spots and sponsorship on the IPL at a premium. 

As a consequence of the IPL’s success, Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) is seeing a surge in overall channel ratings, with both Sony Max, the home of IPL since its start 10 years back, and Sony Six, the flagship sports channel from the broadcaster, ruling their respective genres and that too by a huge margin. In fact, for Sony Max it has meant the pole position on the top ten channel list across genres, dethroning Sun TV.

At 1,429 million impressions in the week, the channel led the charts across genres, overtaking Sun TV and showing a growth of 15 per cent over the second place holder. In the Hindi movie genre, this divide was almost double as the second highest viewership was seen by the network’s free to air Hindi movie channel Sony Wah (427 million impressions) while Sony Max raked in 1,334 million impressions (there is a difference in the value of Max viewership when measured across genres of TV viewing and when looked at within the Hindi movie channel basket because different geographies are considered for the two).

A similar trend was observed in the sports channels for the second week (April 8 to April 14), where Sony Six topped the charts with 458 million impressions, followed by Sony ESPN with 114 million impressions. In fact, the SPN Sports cluster dominated the charts as four of the top five channels were from the network. The tournament has seen an 81 per cent rise viewership on Sony Six over last year, and the cluster (Sony Six, Sony Six HD, Sony ESPN, and Sony ESPN HD) has seen a 49 per cent increase in viewership over last year. 

While viewership on the tournament has grown leaps and bounds since last year, there has been a marginal dip in the time spent and viewership from week one of IPL 10 to week 2. In the first week, for three matches, the average viewership was 29.5 million impressions and the average time spent per viewer was 72 minutes. However, the decline in viewership is expected as Neeraj Vyas, senior EVP and business head, Sony Max cluster at SPN said earlier, “Usually, the afternoon matches see a 35 to 40 per cent dip in viewership (when compared to prime time IPL matches) for obvious reasons (people are at work and it’s not an ideal time to be viewing a match).” 

Of the ten matches played in the second week, three were in the afternoon slot, and predictably, are also the lowest ranking matches in terms of viewership. The Mumbai Indians vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match on April 12 (Wednesday, a prime time match) was the most viewed match of the week at 25.9 million impressions while the Gujarat Lions vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match on April 9, (afternoon slot match) was the least viewed match of the week at 13.6 million impressions. 

(Note: Impressions is the number of viewers at any given time of telecast. The total number of viewers counts the same viewer twice if he is watching two matches or is returning to a repeat telecast)