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Our Bureau

Mumbai, May 23 Two cities from the South of the Vindhyas are set to pit their might against each other in the second season of the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) grand finale on Sunday at Johannesburg.

And IPL-2 has, it seems, lived up to the expectations of jittery advertisers, sponsors and travel operators – despite early hic-cups after the tournament was forced to shift out to South Africa due to the parliamentary elections.

In the finals, Deccan Chargers will take on the winner of the semi-final match between Chennai Super Kings and Bangalore Royal Challengers played on Saturday.

And about 3,000 people would have travelled to South Africa to watch the semi-finals and finals, estimates Thomas Cook’s spokesperson. SOTC has seen over 1,500 bookings, largely for the last three days, for the game’s climax, says SOTC’s Mr Srinivas P.

The tournament, an exclusively television-driven spectacle, has seen a surge in viewership as well, after the initial dip.

For the first time, viewership ratings have gone up to 5.6 per cent in the first semi-final where the Deccan Chargers beat the Delhi Daredevils on Friday, according to television audience rating agency aMap. Breaching the 5-per cent mark for the first time in IPL-2, the ratings overshadowed last year’s figure of 5.1 per cent during the semi-finals.

“It is not surprising that ratings have risen for the semi-finals and our clients are satisfied. In fact, this year the cumulative reach of viewers remained the same as last year. With 2,000 seconds of advertising time and an additional 300 seconds for every strategic break, Max, the official channel, would have been able to reach its revenue targets with an average of Rs 3.4 lakh for every 10-second spot,” said Mr R. Gowthaman, Managing Director, Mindshare, with clients such as Pepsi, Unilever and Castrol.

In spite of Max commanding a premium of Rs 10 lakh for 10 seconds for the final matches, media planners feel that it was worth the buy for their clients.

“The ratings were decent for the entire tournament. Last year, it was a kind of lottery and the ad rates were lower but in absolute terms the ratings were good in spite ad spots being expensive this year,” claims Mr Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar, whose big clients include Tata Motors, Tata Indicom and HCL.

Team owners, though, are not willing to acknowledge whether they have finally reaped profits from the second season, especially with costs going up with the event being shifted out of the country.

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