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According to TAM data provided by a sports broadcaster, the combined viewership for the 7th India-Australia one day international match generated by the simulcast of English and Hindi commentary on Star Sports channels overshadowed all leading Hindi GEC channels. The viewership for the match in the C&S15+ (cable and satellite markets with viewers more than 15 years old) category was 55.56 million.
The TAM data also shows that the time spent per viewer for the 7th India-Australia ODI was 101 minutes which is the highest for any cricketing event in the year. Additionally, the India-Australia series was seen by 43 per cent of the total C&S (cable and satellite) subscriber base, which is also significantly higher than the usual number.
Nitin Kukreja, head sports business, Star India, said, “We are delighted with the viewer traction for the series. There is an upswing of almost 18% in average time spent per viewer for India-Australia as compared to the other bilateral ODI series played against Pakistan and England this year. We are pleased to note the stickiness that Hindi commentary has been able to generate in the HSM (Hindi Speaking Markets). This is a clear cut vindication of our strategy of promoting quality Hindi language commentary in addition to our world class telecast in English.”
STAR Sports had launched a high-decibel campaign, with the core theme ‘Fight for No 1’, to promote the India Australia series featuring 7 ODIs and a T20 match. The series commenced on October 10 and ended on November 02, just 2 days before Diwali. ODI 4 and 5 of the series were impacted by rain. India won the hard fought series 3-2 thereby retaining the no 1 ranking in the ICC ODI Rankings.
The series had Micromax and Hero Motocorp as the joint presenting sponsors for the series. Associate sponsors included Pernod Ricard, Bharti Airtel, Microsoft, Sony, Maruti Suzuki, Exide, Tata Motors and We-Chat. The ad rates for the series were in the range of Rs 2.5 to 3 lakhs but a lot of advertising deals had to be reworked considering the 2 matches that got washed out.
