MUMBAI: Even as sports viewership is rising in the country, cricket’s stranglehold on consumption is only becoming more dominant, with 93% of all sports viewers in 2018 tuning to cricket content, according to a BARC India report.
According to the report ‘Cricket in India: It’s not just a game’, as many as 766 million viewers sampled sports content in 2018.
While other sports like kabaddi, wrestling and football are gaining popularity among Indians, the “blue sky” between cricket and the “best of the rest” is only widening.
Youth (15-30 years) continues to dominate cricket consumership with 35% of live cricket viewership coming from this segment in 2019. Interestingly, 342 million women formed 48% of cricket viewers in 2018.
Women form 48% of cricket viewers for 2018 with 342 million viewers. Women’s cricket viewership showed year-on-year growth. The Women’s World Cup final between India and England registered 39 million impressions. Impressions refer to the number of individuals in thousands of a target audience who viewed an event, averaged across minutes.
IPL is a mainstay in the regular Indian home and dominates sports viewership in the weeks it is on air. The world’s most lucrative T20 league, in its 11th edition, dominates annual cricket viewership with 40% cent share. Interestingly, 50% IPL viewers are below 30 years of age.
As far as the impact on the advertising industry is concerned, e-commerce has emerged as the dominant sector with share of ads going up from 14% in 2016 to 42% in 2018, whereas smartphones and telecom ads have decreased from 24% in 2016 to 11% in 2018, the report said.
Airtime
In terms of airtime, India matches account for over 50% of all international matches telecast on television. However, the viewership lens shows the clear preference of Indian viewers for India matches accounting for 78%, 92% and 91% in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively.
The report also noted that the number of sports channels have witnessed a steady rise on the back of both HD channels and regional channel launches. Popular matches are also simulcasted on Non-sports channels and this number has gone north as well. Non-live cricket content also makes up for respectable airtime.
It also revealed that cricket content on television is approaching the 1 million hour mark annually, with 890,000 hours being clocked in 2018. Non–sports channels carried 4,700 hours of cricket content in 2016 and upwards of 5,400 hours in 2018.
