Advertisment

IPL 9: The vexed issue of ratings comparison

There has been a paradigm shift in ratings measurement since TAM ratings ceased to exist. What should be the comparative mapping benchmarks for the 2015 edition and how should advertisers count the value of their buck spent?

author-image
BestMediaInfo Bureau
New Update
IPL 9: The vexed issue of ratings comparison

IPL 9: The vexed issue of ratings comparison

There has been a paradigm shift in ratings measurement since TAM ratings ceased to exist. What should be the comparative mapping benchmarks for the 2015 edition and how should advertisers count the value of their buck spent?

Raushni Bhagia | Mumbai | April 25, 2016

IPL-LogoWith a history of eight successful seasons, thousands of crores of rupees worth of advertising, millions of viewers, three title sponsors and innumerable controversies, the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year is facing a serious problem of lack of performance mapping of TV viewership. What does this mean for the tournament and advertisers? How do they benchmark the past numbers with the current ratings data?

Well, television advertising has always been completely dependent on viewership measured by a single agency for each and every property on the small screen. For long, the erstwhile ratings agency TAM India had been churning out TV viewership measurement data. However, it ceased to exist from February 29 this year. The new measurement body is BARC India which has a sample size, methodology and formula way different from what TAM used. In such a scenario, one would wonder how fair it is to compare the data generated out of two methodologies.

For 2016, IPL's ninth season, BARC India has released the data for the first seven matches, wherein the debut match played between Mumbai Indians versus Rising Pune Supergiants generated 24,118 Impressions (BARC All India/ 4+/ Impressions´000s / only Live Match). The most watched match was played on Tuesday between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad attracting 24,137 Impressions.

In fact, Rohit Gupta, Network Sales President at Sony Pictures Networks, was recently quoted in Business Standard as saying that the tournament reach has increased by about 93 per cent since last year. The report went on to compare the figures of the first week's reach garnered by the tourney in 2015 (113 million) to the current year's 218 million for the same set of matches.

All this data is generated from a sample which spreads across rural and urban parts of the country, which was clearly not the case during the TAM India days. That brings the discussion back to the question whether the viewership data generated for IPL 2015 can or should be compared to IPL 2016 numbers. BestMediaInfo.com reached out to industry experts to get some perspectives into this vexed issue.

To Compare or Not To

Sandip_tarkas Sandip Tarkas

Sandip Tarkas, CEO (Sports, Media and Special Projects) at Future Group, said, “Comparisons are difficult but that is the case with every other property on television as it is for IPL. One has to look at the data relative to other options available to the advertiser. Another key indicator could be that unlike in the past, people have actually released big movies during IPL and those movies have done well.”

While some believe that despite comparisons being completely unfair, the individual figures of the current year are quite impressive. Jigar Rambhia, Head of Sports at Maxus, said, “Comparison is incorrect. Also, I think the only stable and recent data that we have is of 2014. I don't think any advertiser will look at two-year-old data to really decide about his monies. The only thing that we can look at in the current data is 3.1 TVR and it is very encouraging, independent of what it was in previous years. Also, this is just seven matches; we have 53 more to go.”

A lot of experts whom we tried to speak to mentioned that it is too early to talk about it as the tournament has just started. But the fact remains that even for a complete season average and the quarter-finals, semis or final, we will not have any increase or decrease to map on year-on-year basis.

Siddharth Banerjee Siddharth Banerjee

Siddharth Banerjee, National Head - Brand Communication and Insights, Vodafone India, said, “During last year's IPL season, the TV rating system in the country went through a significant overhaul. This year's data source for the IPL is different compared to previous editions and hence it would be unfair to compare or comment on the ratings at this stage.”

Sathyamurthy Namakkal Sathyamurthy Namakkal

While the industry was unanimous in suggesting that comparisons cannot be made, Sathyamurthy Namakkal, Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group and President, DDB MudraMax, suggested better options for mapping the performance. He said, “It is incorrect to compare the two studies as the basis and methodology are entirely different. The best that one could do is to evolve 'comparison benchmarks' between the two studies in order to understand the emerging trends. You can always look at the absolute head counts, instead of getting lost in percentages. This year should give us the BARC benchmarks and should do reasonably well.”

How to Count?

Everyone knows and believes that IPL is an omnipresent property and the buzz is huge across all mediums. However, television is the most expensive and critical medium to reach the masses that cricket taps. The absence of a comparative figure might affect advertisers in counting the value for their investments.

Rambhia explains that a property like IPL and similar ones are generally calculated differently. “They are considered as a consolidated performance in terms of buzz, mentions on digital media, hype and popularity. It is a clear assumption that if a property has proven itself for the last eight years, there's no reason that BARC will change things too much.”

One of the major advertisers, Vodafone, vouches for the same. Banerjee shows immense belief and trust in the property. He explained, “Value is a composite of free commercial time (FCT) + the value adds + the Buzz the property generates for us, we believe in the property and the benefit it drives for our business. We have invested in data analytics to determine the impact of IPL on our key performance indicators (KPI) and have found significant return on investment (ROI) being delivered. Hence our decision to continue to invest in IPL is basis very clear decision metrics."

Tarkas too senses a lot of belief in the property amongst advertisers. A brand expert himself, he mentioned, “The fact that advertisers are still flocking to IPL clearly reflects the confidence they have in the property and it still remains the No.1 property to reach (mass) audiences, particularly for products and services targeted at men. TAM and BARC numbers are just measurements of what people believe is a great property. Not buying something because the measurement matrix has changed is a lot more unfair than a comparison between the two systems.”

While it remains for individual brands to decide for themselves, the fact that the tournament has already raked in a lot of money says something. However, some believe that the performance shown this year so far will definitely invite a serious analysis and evaluation in the coming years.

Sathyamurthy said, “New methodologies and new research products must be welcome for the benefit of the industry. Like we have evolved from diary method to people meter – and more than survived – this phase of confusion will also be passé soon. BARC should encourage constructive criticism and come up with solutions quickly. They have come a long way already.”

Vodafone's Banerjee goes on to mention the initiatives that the brand has been taking around the cricketing event. He said, “Vodafone was one of the very first few brands to associate with IPL and we are very happy with the way our association has shaped up through the years. For this year's IPL, we are promoting our recently launched Vodafone SuperNet proposition celebrating the major improvements in our network bringing new benefits to our customers. A lot of innovative initiatives are all being promoted with a creative blitzkrieg and amplified with a high decibel 360 campaign. We are delighted with the early feedback and encouraging response received in the first 10 days of the tournament.”

IPL-9-BARC-Numbers

Info@bestmediainfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Advertisment