Two C's that rule Indian television

What happens to viewership trends when cricket and cinema are pitted against each other?

Cricket and Cinema rule Indian hearts - that is a statement few will argue with. But there is one difference, a rather big one at that, which is sure to shake up some long entrenched beliefs. Bollywood stands less of a chance against Virat Kohli and his boys, but south Indian stars are more than a match for the men in blue.

Yes, cricket hits a straight sixer out of the stadium when pitted against Bollywood's blockbusters. In fact, even the TV premieres of some big movies have failed to woo eyeballs away from cricket. For instance, Salman Khan's super hit, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo, led the pack of top five Bollywood premiere shows across Hindi Speaking Markets (BARC, HSM, urban and rural) with an impressive 21.5 million impressions (a time weighted average of the number of people watching TV and the time spent by them). But it was blown away by the second PayTmT20, India vs Sri Lanka match in the same market, which notched up 30.9 million impressions across DD National and the Star Sports network!

However, cine fans in the South support their film stars, come Kohli, Dhoni or Malinga. Love for films in the region straddles age groups and viewers below and above 30 are equally hooked. Therefore Baahubali: the beginning is top of the BARC charts with a record 14.9 million impressions in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Srimanthudu is not far behind, either, at 14.3 million, whereas the high powered India vs Sri Lanka match generated just three million in the same region. The same goes for Kannada films in Karnataka and Tamil films in Tamil Nadu. From Komban, Jilla, Kanchana2 to Ghilli, all top five Tamil films average between 11 to 12 million impressions!

Does this mean movies work better in the south and cricket in the north? In a vast country like ours, the answer can never be a simple one. BARC data now includes a much larger universe - around 153.5 million TV households, almost equally split between urban (77.5 million) and rural (76 million) India. And given the pace at which digitisation is making inroads into Indian homes, new viewership patterns are emerging almost every week. And to decode these patterns, several factors have to be considered.

For one, age plays a huge part; viewers below 30 do not watch as much cricket as those above 30. Secondly, while both urban and rural India exhibit similar affinities towards cricket, Bollywood premieres hold greater power in urban India (four million impressions for top 20 premieres) than rural (1.9 million).

To be clear, this is not a reflection on the content of the films being premiered. It would erroneous to say even that these movies did not appeal to rural audiences. The difference in viewership patterns could simply be the result of distribution disparity between urban and rural India, which is a very critical factor.

TV premieres of Bollywood movies are normally aired on paid channels. Cricket matches, especially if India plays, are aired on DD National, a Free to Air (FTA) channel. This makes a huge difference to viewers. And credible answers will emerge only when we map the different strands of data with the contextual realities of television watching in India.

Partho Dasgupta
CEO, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India