It was a dream come true for the leading sponsors and advertisers of DLF's Indian Premier League (IPL) as the two semi-finals and the final were watched by over 64 million cable viewers across the country or about 50 per cent of the individual cable and satellite viewers.
It was "paisa vasool" for the advertisers who got a very high return on their investments in IPL as the final match between the Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Superkings got a rating of 10 on Set Max, the maximum for any of the 45 IPL matches.
According to aMap, the online television rating monitoring agency, over 64 million cable viewers watched the last three matches with almost 24 million viewers watching the final on Sunday that was won by Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals.
Advertising industry experts say that IPL's ratings are the highest for any recently concluded cricket tournament. "For the India matches in the Twenty20 World Cup held in South Africa last year, the ratings hovered around 6-7," a senior executive from a leading media buying agency said.
In the aMap data, the average ratings for the last three IPL matches were 4.5, 4.5 and 7.7, whereas the peak ratings for the three matches stood at 7.1 (Rajasthan versus Delhi), 6.6 (Chennai versus Chandigarh) and 10.2 (Rajasthan versus Chennai).
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The average time spent by the viewers also almost doubled from the earlier matches. In the final match, the average time spent by the viewers was 89 minutes (1.5 hours) compared to the 40 minutes spent watching the previous matches, the aMap data said.
The net reach of Set Max, the host broadcaster of IPL, stood at about 20 per cent of the total cable and satellite universe. This means that over 16 million cable homes had tuned their television sets to Set Max during the final on Sunday.
"There are 117.1 million individuals in the cable and satellite households, of which 24 million watched the finals," an aMap spokesperson said.
The ad industry estimates that a 10-second spot on Set Max during the last three matches sold for Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. But for sponsors like Coca-Cola, Hyundai and others, the money was well spent as they got the 10-second commercials at an average rate of Rs 2-2.5 lakh. Overall, Set Max managed to make over Rs 350 crore in advertising revenue.