World Cup: Cricket, News and the media planner's opportunity

Ever wondered where the viewers go after the Cricket matches end?

On the face of it, a generic answer would be that they shut their TV or leave their mobile screens.

But contrary to this, most of them navigate to news channels. The spikes in BARC ratings of news channels immediately after the match are long established.

It is for this reason the advertisers who find advertising on sports channels unjustified buy the same audiences on news channels.

The highly charged World Cup match between India and Pakistan on October 14 threw yet another stunning example of this trend.

At the last ball, there were a record 3.5 crore concurrent viewers on Disney+ Hotstar and the number dipped to 70 lakh within a few minutes after the match.

A simple look at the YouTube channels of top news brands established the trend again more precisely. Almost all the news channels experienced a sharp rise in their concurrent viewership right after the match indicating that the cricket fans have flocked to news channels for post-match analysis.

A closer look at the data was even more stunning.

A minute-by-minute analysis of YouTube concurrent data for Aaj Tak shows that the channel’s viewership grew more than 3 times on average immediately after the match. It peaked up to more than 4X of average numbers before the last ball of the match.

The India vs Pakistan match ended at 8.06 PM on October 14. In the 30-minute period before the last ball, Aaj Tak’s average concurrent viewership was 15,637 for its primary feed.

As soon as India won the match, there was a sharp rise in the number of concurrent viewers on the primary feed of Aaj Tak.

Within four minutes, the channel witnessed a 4X jump in concurrent viewership and touched a peak of 66,000 concurrent viewers at around 8:15 PM.

The average concurrent viewership of 30 minutes after the match stood at 51,889, which is more than three times the average viewership of 30 minutes before the last ball of the match.

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