Sports channels play the regional game as IPL season draws on

Star, Sony and Doordarshan are tweaking programmes and focusing on localisation to widen the audience and revenue base

In the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League that kicked off in April, the action is visible not just on the field, but also off it. If batsmen are amassing tons, broadcasters too are scoring big viewership points as the cricket season draws on.   

Their plan to telecast the matches live in a host of regional languages is helping the sport reach a wider audience than ever before. With commentary in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali, Star India, the official broadcaster of the IPL, saw its viewership increase 39 per cent in south India after the second week of the start of the tournament, against 5.9 per cent growth overall in the country.

Tweaking programmes to appeal to regional markets has worked for entertainment and news channels, and now broadcasters are keen to help sports transcend linguistic barriers to reach new audiences. The market, say experts, appears ripe for such an experiment, with new audiences tuning in to sports and the sky-high advertisement rates for cricket with commentary in English or Hindi creating a demand for a more segmented advertisement market. 

In anticipation of a spike in viewership, broadcasters are adding new programmes and rolling out new channels. Ten channels dedicated to sports have been launched in the last three years, taking the total to 27, with a combined viewership of 780 million in 2017. Interestingly, women comprise 38 per cent of the total audience share and their number is growing thanks to notable performances by female athletes in sports ranging from cricket, golf, boxing and badminton to tennis and shooting in recent years. 

All the three big players in the segment — Doordarshan, Star and Sony — are pitching for localisation,  be it by way of more local programming or a sharpened focus on the telecast of state-level events. Sony, for example, broadcasts cricket in three languages. Star plans to broadcast the IPL in six languages, from four currently, and DD has launched a free-to-air sports channel, besides widening the reach of its main channel DD sports. After a dedicated Tamil sports channel, Star is set to roll out a Kannada language regional sports channel – Star Sports Kannada. 

Sanjay Gupta, managing director, Star India, expects India's engagement with sports to take a big leap forward. In particular, he expects a boom in locally relevant content in regional languages. Currently, language feeds comprise 20-30 per cent of viewers, while Hindi dominates at 60-70 per cent and English accounts for 10 per cent.

Sony has grown its network of sports channel from one in 2012 to 11 in a span of five years. Though around-the-clock service in regional languages is still a while away, it plans to tap the market through various language feeds.

The localisation trend is partly being fuelled by the rise in popularity of non-cricketing sports, mainly football and kabaddi, which have a more rustic, rural appeal. Small towns account for 47 per cent of the total viewership for these sports, says industry experts. Currently, there are 10 sporting leagues in India, including for hockey, kabaddi, football and badminton. An EY report said that the fifth season of Pro Kabbadi League in 2017 saw a surge in viewership by 59 per cent compared to the inaugural day of season four in 2016. 

No wonder, then, there is an increase in the number of advertisers wanting to own ad spots in sports other than cricket, which commands upwards of Rs 5 lakh for a 10 second spot. Kabaddi and football, which till recently struggled to find advertisers, now have a going rate of Rs1.50-2.50 lakh for a ten-second ad spot. 

The broadcasters are also eyeing the business from local sports leagues led by newspaper companies such as Hindu news channel ABP News and Marathi newspaper Lokmat that operate in tier I and II cities.  Metronation Chennai Television, a part of Tamil media group Daily Thanthi, for example, owns the South Chennai team for Tamil Nadu Premier League, a cricket league on the lines of the IPL. Entertainment company Cineyug has also launched a T10 cricket tournament in West Asia to tap local investors in sports, says Rajesh Kaul, president (distribution and sports business), Sony Pictures Networks India.

“The emergence of a number of sports leagues has resulted in a remarkable growth in the sports viewership and continues to grow. Coupled with regional language feeds, domestic leagues for sports is also driving growth for sports viewership,” he says. “The market is clearly open to experimentation of new formats in sports.”

But TV is not the only format broadcasters have their eyes set on. Digital platforms such as over the top and social networks are big on their agenda too. Over 50 million Indians are actively consuming sports content on digital, according to the EY report. The India Today Group has launched a digital platform for sports called Sports Tak. HT Media has entered into a joint venture with sports media and technology firm Minute Media, the parent company of two football content sites, 90min and 12up. The deal will mark the launch of 90min in India with an app and a website providing football content.

In the digital space, the industry expects sports content to grow at around 18 per cent over the next two years. Sundar Ram, CEO (sports), Reliance Industries Limited, expects digital channels to emerge as a major revenue stream. For sports broadcasters, it appears to be game on.