The Hindu Business Line : First India match at ICC T20 garners higher viewership

Watching Indians play as a team instead of being spread across different leagues is what drove higher average viewership ratings for ICC World T20 in its first India-specific match.

The match between India and Bangladesh garnered a higher rating (at 3.9) compared with the first match played at IPL-2 (at 3.6) as recorded by the television rating agency aMap.

With almost a 20 per cent increase in viewership, it was the desire to see India playing as a team and also as a defending champion last year which attracted more television eyeballs over the weekend on Star Cricket.

The match played on Saturday (June 6) garnered a reach of 13 million viewers but was, however, lower in reach compared with the inaugural match played between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings at 17.8 million.

According to Mr Amit Varma, CEO, aMap, “While the reach may have been lesser than the IPL, this single match between India and Bangladesh had a larger duration than the first match of the IPL. My conjecture is that people wanted to see India playing as a nation and it was the country factor which has worked in its favour.”

But overall, matches played between rest of the countries failed to garner significant viewership, and this applied for even the French Open finals over the weekend.

Observes Mr Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner, CTG (Central Trading Group), Group M, “It is quite simple. There is larger passion displayed when India plays cricket against another country and people are interested to see the country getting united.

“However, IPL is a display of the passion when cricket is played between different cities. It is slowly and steadily catching up.”

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