ESPN, Star Cricket score with Twenty20

The Twenty20 tournament is the flavour of the season and with the Indian cricket team breaking into the semi finals of the ICC World Twenty20, ESPN and Star Cricket, the official broadcasters, have a lot to celebrate with their ratings rocketing. According to the recent TAM Media Research the combined channel shares of broadcaster ESPN and Star Cricket during the India-Pakistan match on September 14, 2007 was 47.2 per cent.

ESPN, which is telecasting the English feed of the ICC World Twenty20 coverage, had a 26.7 per cent share, and Star Cricket, which has the Hindi feed, took a 20.5 per cent share of the total channels pie.

Leading Hindi general entertainment channels were far behind in that period. Zee TV had just 9 per cent and Star Plus only 5.8 per cent.

Top-rated programmes like Sa re ga ma pa Challenge (on Zee) dipped from 6 in the previous week to 4.2 as the tournament got underway last week. Likewise, Sony Entertainment TV's ratings dropped to 2.5 from 3.8 in the previous week.

The overall channel shares of ESPN and STAR Cricket have also seen a substantial increase from the start of the tournament. They have managed to notch up an 8.6 per cent share, beating Zee TV (7 per cent) and Star Plus (6.5 per cent).