IPL Viewership Vs Elections Viewership- Wait a Minute... IPL Wins!

The general election may have won the battle, but it looks like the Indian Premier League (IPL) will win the war—for eyeballs. “IPL will be watched by both mass as well as niche audiences. It will be watched by people across the country,” says Emmanuel

Viewership studies by two media buying firms say the Twenty20 cricket league that begins on 18 April, will attract more viewers than the election coverage! The general election begins on 16 April and will be conducted in five phases till 13 May. The counting of votes will happen on 16 May, the day when election coverage peaks on news channels.

The final of IPL is to be played on 24 May in Johannesburg. If an IPL match and election coverage happens at the same time, approximately 60% of the viewers will prefer to watch cricket, says a dipstick study of 120 people done across Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore by Maxus, a media buying agency that is part of GroupM India Pvt. Ltd.

An advertiser, who incidentally has bought time on both IPL and election coverage, also votes in favour of IPL. “IPL cuts across age groups and genders. Advertising on IPL will help reach out to a wider base (than elections),” says a spokesperson for Samsung Electronics Pvt. Ltd. The company bought ads on elections because of “its overall importance”, the spokesperson added. According to media buyers, a 10-second ad spot during an IPL match is currently being sold for Rs4 lakh against the going rate of Rs2, 000 to Rs4, 000 for election coverage on news channels. And while a sponsor has to spend around Rs30-35 crore to get associated with IPL, the sponsorship of election coverage on news channels costs anything between Rs15 lakh and Rs30 lakh.The study also points out that while viewers can get updates on elections intermittently, cricket fans are not likely to sacrifice live action once they sit in front of their television.

Media buyers also say that the profile of viewers on IPL will be much better than news channels.