IPL makes it miserable for the TV industry

I would like to start my post with Lalit Modi’s statement on 24^th March 2010

“IPL will do billion dollar business this year”

And I was not shocked as this is what I have been highlighting in my previous posts; but the transition has been huge this year as compared to last year’s revenue of $450 million. So, the new ideas have been received well by the audience.

These new ideas have surely made it miserable for our very own primetime soap oper

as. This time, statistics will speak more than me.

• There has been a decline of 11 per cent in the share of general entertainment channels in the second week of the IPL telecast.So, some alarming signs for the TV industry and with around 30 days more to go for the season, the coming month is going to disturb them more.

• The opening match between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL3 recorded an average TVR of 7.0(C&S 4+ yrs) season, held in South Africa, the opening match recorded a TVR of 5.6 and 7.2 for both panels respectively. Though, it has not beaten the first season yet.

• The first match this season clocked 45 minutes in ad volumes, four minutes higher than that of the opening day of IPL-1 and IPL-2.

• The first 3 days of IPL3 have earned an avg. TVR of 7.0.
  

The share of Hindi movie channels has seen a rise of 42 per cent, owing to the telecast of IPL on SET Max, a movie channel.

So, basically with IPL Set Max has been topping the TVR charts; just have a look :

Click on the image to enlarge.

The major attractions this season so far have been:

• The IPL’s ‘Back in India’ ad campaign – because cricket does not excite us Indians, until there is stadium noise dubbing the TV commentary and backing it stars with roars of Sachin!!.... Sachin!! Sehwag!!.... Sehwag!!

• The hype of the Mongoose Bat, this has made the sport special. With special gears only made for IPL and you get to watch them exclusively in IPL.

• The new venues for matches (namely, Ahmedabad, Cuttuck, Nagpur, Dharamshala) that have been added, have further nationalized the game and have attracted more audience which is no more restricted to only the parent venues.

• Lastly, Sachin Tendulkar’s awesome form. Now , this is something that stops India when Sachin is on 99 and even world leaders have something to say on this:

I dont know about cricket but still I watch cricket to see sachin's play. Not because I love his play, its because to know the reason why my country"s production reduced to 50%, when he is in batting – B. H. OBAMA, President of United States of America

This is just the trailer, picture to abhi baaki hai mere dost. Next year with 2 new teams Team PUNE and Team COCHI there will be 10 teams with 34 more matches, which might be extending the suffering period to about 20 more days. So, the horrifying part for other channels awaits.

IPL boosts the Internet

You all must be ready with your 5 most common online activities and majority of you must have thought of atleast 2-3 out of the activities listed below or may agree to the list.

THE MOST COMMON 5 ACTIVITIES ON INTERNET:

1. Check E – Mail 
2. Search for Jobs 
3. Access Social Networking sites that also includes reading & writing blogs
4. Surf news sites or check sports sites for score updates 
5. Online gaming

Now, just have a look at the figure below:

Click on the image to enlarge

What I mean to say is that the internet experiences a natural increase in the number of users at the time of IPL, because of a simple reason that people are more engaged in 3 of their most common activities. This opportunity is leveraged by various websites and blogs by initiating activities based on the IPL themes. Taking each of them separately:

1. Social Networking Websites: We have already heard that Twitter is the third most popular platform for IPL discussions. So this tells that there is an increase in the

• Number of social networkers(social media traffic)
• The time spent by people on social networking sites
• Number of pages created on Facebook, number of communities created on Orkut, number of tweets re-tweets on Twitter..etc..

2. Cricket Blogs : The IPL is the favourite topic of discussions on majority of the blogs starting right from the player auctions, pre/post match analysis, team probabilities, comments on comments and controversies (How can one forget the infamous blog of KKR’s ‘FakeIplPlayer’). These blogs get a huge hype at the time of IPL and professional cricket bloggers like Brandistics' parent blog AllPaddedUp the following

• High readership
• Benefits their page ranks
• Gets them advertisements
• Provide immense pool of content to write on and for readers to enjoy.

3. Sports Websites: They get a bit overloaded during IPL with almost 2 matches a day from just 1 tournament you got to be on your toes. Live scores, live text commentary, mobile versions of live scores and the comments of cricket experts are the major services these websites bank on. These websites have got a huge traffic from:

• The corporate world that can only access these sites for live updates or are mobile most of the time.
• The travelling audience who has their GPRS enabled mobile phones to access the internet and no access to television (I am targeting very specifically).
• And the ones who access the SMS scoring services.

4. Online streaming of match videos: This one is the latest in the block and has shown a huge potential. I have lot to talk about it, so I keep it safe for my future posts.

A true innovation is the one which benefits the innovator and the environment as a whole. IPL has definitely boosted the internet industry and (If you still not buy this) the prospects are huge in the coming future. So now, are you getting a feel of why I started with IPL as the 22^nd most innovative company, globally? There is lot more left to tell you about the other verticals of entertainment viz. Television industry, Bollywood (film industry to be more precise) and the very own News industry (print + television channels). Keep reading and would love to have your comments and suggestions on my outlook.

IPL takes over the entertainment industry

My first post was just a glimpse of the things you can expect in the pipeline. To begin with I will answer the first question through this post

How has IPL taken over the entertainment industry giving a huge platform for marketing?

The entertainment industry in India is riding high on film industry, primetime television shows, and reality television shows and the news bulletins by the ever growing news channel. But when the IPL season is ‘ON’ these industries better succumb to a simple mantra:

Co-exist or die

We’ll look at the statistics that made me say this for IPL by discussing its impact on the Indian masses through various media ; be it television, newspapers, movie theatres and the latest one that has come up in the list (specially after the Google – IPL tieup, the first initiative ever to livesteam 60 matches in 43 days) is the internet.

We see everyone coordinating with IPL so far like movie theatres (that bore huge losses during first season) buying screening rights to telecast the matches, newspapers and news sites with special IPL pages, internet flooded with blogs, social network discussions and television channels starting up IPL shows for example, the IPL tie up with TV channel Colors worth Rs. 30 crores.

It would be an exciting discussion and to start with I take the last one – internet, that has brought about an exponential yoy growth in the viewership of the game this year.

Well, there were hits by the viewers on sports sites like ESPN’s Cricinfo, Yahoo! Cricket , Rediff Sports ,even our own sport blogs and social networking sites in the last 2 seasons. But with the advent of Google into the picture in the third season its true to say that there is something in the direction, the leader points towards. So, a huge potential for these live scoring sites, social networking sites, ticketing and gaming sites has been revealed. To throw some light on this potential, the statistics of online media recorded say:

• The number of internet users on major sports sites has doubled after the player’s auctions starting from January 2010 as compared to those in January 2009.
• IPL channel on Youtube is the #1 viewed channel in India.The channel views of IPL on Youtube have reached 80,00,000 in the first 5 days with 38 days more to go you can expect a lot.
• On the first day of IPL-3 in terms of channel views IPL saw the number going up 84 per cent to 880,615 by the second half of the day from 478,057 in the first half. By Sunday, it had crossed 3.1 millions.
• Twitter has been stated as the third most popular platform for IPL discussions with KKR [Kolkata Knight Riders] as the most discussed team and Ricky Ponting most discussed player.

There are lot more statistics but let’s digest them slowly. So it is assured that there is some impact created on the online audience. But let me bring you a bigger picture. Just think of five most common things you do when you go online and make a list in your mind whereas I catch you up in the next post.

Or let us make this more interesting, put those 5 things in the comment section of this post!

IPL - 22nd Most Innovative. Globally.

Wonder why IPL has made its way into the list of most innovative companies at the 22nd Position? Well, if you haven't then you should have. After all, it started only in 2008, and it is already on a prestigious list.

Now, that you have wondered, or rather, now that we have forced you to wonder, here are some answers.

IPL defined a new economy of cricket through the success of its first season in 2008.The idea was to target the primetime audience who were now bored of the monotonous saas–bahu soaps and present them a shorter form of entertaining cricket buttered with glam from bollywood.

The innovation did not stop here; there is more to it – the business side of the game. IPL is a revolution in sports marketing, starting with the high bids on players, to huge sponsorships, broadcasting rights, ground tickets and most importantly a theme for marketers to promote their brands through co – branding strategies, all of it generates huge revenue.

If we are talking revenue, let us give you some figures!

IPL is expected to generate revenue of over Rs. 10,000 Crores ($2 billion) in its first decade. I said ‘over’ as the world’s richest cricketing body BCCI [Board of Cricket Control in India] is going to be richer by Rs. 750 Crores ($150 million) in IPL3, up 25% from the last season. So, with such a season on season (sos) growth in revenue it might reach the target well before expectations.

With so much money being fished out by the leading global marketers in this sport, there must be a lot to talk on this subject which is what the upcoming posts will describe you:

• How has IPL taken over the entertainment industry giving a huge platform for marketing?
• How do the business minds investing in the teams find it a valuable proposition?
• How are the various big brands co–branding with IPL?

You want to know the answers, don't you?!