The Hindu Business Line : When Sachin's out viewership goes for a toss

SO, how did we fare in the first week of the World Cup? Not very well on the pitch, but the match telecasts on SET-Max, Sony and DD threw up some attractive numbers: the first six days of the World Cup telecasts garnered 57.13 million walk-ins, or people who viewed the telecast for at least one minute, according to TAM Media Research.

But, we are still a Sachin-obsessed viewing audience: the numbers for the India vs. Holland and India vs. Australia matches show that viewership fell by a whopping 20 per cent with Tendulkar's wicket.

A minute-by-minute plotting of viewership in Mumbai shows that the highest viewership, 16 TVR (television rating), came when India looked close to a win in the Holland match, and the low point of viewership, at just above 0, came as Australia looked set to win. So advertisers are right to be biting their nails ahead of the decisive India matches.

Advertisers also now know which markets they should focus on when it comes to cricket telecasts; for the India vs. Australia match, viewing duration was highest in the top six metros, followed by rest of Uttar Pradesh and rest of Karnataka.

Viewing duration was lowest in Madhya Pradesh, according to TAM-Adex.

But advertisers can take heart in the fact that they are able to retain audiences even during the ad breaks better than Aamir Khan can.

During the India vs. Australia match on SET-Max, there was 100 per cent retentivity of audience during the breaks, as compared to 86 per cent retentivity during the Lagaan commercial breaks.

"This could be a function of smaller breaks on a cricket match, but truly reveals the involvement of all the viewers," noted Mr Atul Phadnis, Director, S-Group, TAM Media Research.

The average TVR for the match when India batted was 12.1; this slipped to 6.1 when Australia batted.

But even when the Aussies batted, there was 100 per cent retention of audiences during the breaks, according to TAM Media Research. That is surely good news for the advertisers who have blown a considerable part of their annual budgets already.

So, which brands are ahead of the pool so far? On the basis of Gross Ratings Points (GRPs) in the overall 4 years-plus households surveyed, Pepsi, BSNL, Bajaj Pulsar, Reliance India Mobile and Pepsodent were clearly ahead.

The results are slightly different in the cable & satellite 4 years-plus homes: Pepsi, Reliance India Mobile, Close-Up, Bharat Petroleum and Samsung Colour TV.

As for the number of people who have actually seen the commercials; in the six metros during the India vs. Australia match, Pepsi was the clear leader, delivering over 75 million gross impressions - or the number of people who have seen the commercial - on SET-Max and DD.

Philips was present only on DD, and registered over 25 million gross impressions; Asian Paints, ICICI and Samsung were present only on SET-Max, with Asian Paints registering the least number of gross impressions overall, just over 20 million.

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