Cricket makes a comeback on TV

The ongoing India-England cricket test series has managed to pull back to TV sets the cricket fans who had shied away after India's debacle in the World Cup in the West Indies earlier this year.

The recently drawn test match between India and England has delivered a high television rating (TVR) of 1.75 in the metros. The ratings have been released by aMap, the online television measurement rating agency.

According to experts, these ratings are indicative of the return of faith among millions of cricket fans.

"A television rating of around 2 for India playing test matches abroad is considered decent. The aMap ratings from the metros indicate that a good number of cricket fans were glued to the television in the evenings, expecting India to do well," a senior media planner said.

Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai account for over 60 per cent of the target audience that advertisers target on a sports channel.

Therefore, a relatively higher ratings for India-England test series compared to the last series in Bangladesh is a good sign for cricket, experts add.

According to aMap, India's tour to Bangladesh in May post World Cup debacle resulted in an extremely low TVRs of 0.02-0.30. Even advertisers stayed away from the series raising questions on the popularity of the game.

Though recently launched Star Cricket channel has struggled with the all-India roll out and reach in the initial days of the first test match, channel executives say that it is now being watched across most of the 70 million cable homes.

"Star Cricket is a new channel and many agreements with over 100 cable operators were done during the second and the third day of the five-day test match. As its reach increases, ratings will start reflecting a clear picture of the popularity of the game," a senior ESPN executive said.

Star Cricket is the all-cricket channel launched by ESPN Star India.