poor cricket ratings TV India

Watching the Media

follow this blog

53 followers

154 daily readers

rank of 1475

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

AUSTRALIA’S CRICKET CONTROVERSY MAY IMPROVE POOR TV VIEWERSHIP OF THE TEST IN INDIA

January 10th 2008 00:38

The controversy over ongoing India-Australia series has seemingly been resolved which means that Australia will now be spared the pompous outpourings of pretentious and boring cricket experts who suggest this bun fight was of a significance akin to the outbreak of the Second World War.
The incessantly invoked “spirit of the game” has apparently been preserved and the cricket-loving world can sleep soundly at night.
But in India, the controversy has resulted with more viewers now keenly following the matches, which, according to Indian media planners, is a positive fallout of the fiasco. And this is good news for broadcast channel ESPN-STAR Sports and its advertisers, claims Exchange4media.

Commenting on the overall impact on viewers, Nikhil Rangnekar, executive director, Starcom India West, said, “With the tour continuing, it is bound to boost the ratings as now people who have not been following the Test series would be interested in knowing what is happening next in the series after so much hype and controversy. Also, now with Steve Bucknor not officiating in the third Test, people will want to know about the replacement umpire (New Zealand umpire Billy Bowden) and whether he would be anti-India or pro-India.”
Another factor which seems to be going in ESPN-STAR Sports’ favour is the timing of the next Test match. The Perth Test match will begin from 8am IST, and is expected to bring in a lot more viewers unlike the previous two matches, which, according to media planners, registered low viewership.
Divya Radhakrishnan, vice-president, TME, also feels that it is a ‘hay-making’ period for ESPN-STAR Sports as it will now get more viewers than before, which in turn will attract more advertisers and revenue.

Kunal Jamuar, general manager, Madison Sigma, said Indian news channels had also benefited a lot these couple of days, and that they would be on the lookout for more content in coming days of the series. “I won’t be surprised if we see media taking on yet another issue in the game and put it on air a number of times in a day. They will be on a constant lookout for interesting content to increase their viewership as well,” he added.
In other words, it looks like yet another earth-shattering controversy may be cooked up.
Further fallout is predicted to affect advertisers who have signed on Australian cricketers as “brand ambassadors.”
With Aussie cricketers now on the nose, if these commercials are aired during the ongoing cricket series, there could be some serious repercussions for their “brand image” as people would not like to associate with unpopular celebrities, according to Exchange4media.
Commenting on this front, Jamuar said that such commercials featuring the Aussies would be taken off at least for this series. “Advertisers don’t like to associate their brand with infamous celebrities. But I do think that such ads might come up with a few Indian players, too, featuring as brand ambassadors like it was done in the case of TVS some years back,” he observed.

AUSTRALIA’S CRICKET CONTROVERSY MAY IMPROVE POOR TV VIEWERSHIP OF THE TEST IN INDIA

Add A Comment

JJ McRoach's Blogs