India?s shock exit from the the ICC T20 World Cup has not upset fans alone. With over Rs 250-odd crore riding on advertising revenues alone, the champions? 3-run defeat to England is sure to rattle broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports and advertisers as well.

Media planners and analysts predict a 30-50% drop in viewership with India out of the reckoning. ?If India wins, India watches,? said R Gowthaman, MD, MindShare, adding, ?we are still recovering from the shock and the Plan B is yet to be developed.?

Till now, planners, buyers, advertisers and the broadcaster depended on Plan A, which visualised India at least getting into the semi-finals. According to analysts, the broadcaster, especially going by the maiden T20 experience in 2007 where India-Pakistan matches whipped up a frenzy, would have kept 10-15% of its inventory to be sold at the finishing stages of the tournament at premium rates. Already, the current rate is Rs 3-4 lakh per 10 seconds of air time, whichwas expected to climb to Rs 8-10 lakh as India got into the semis.

?About 10-15% of inventory will now not be sold or sold at lower rates,? said Gowthaman.

?By and large, the broadcaster will take a hit on this unsold inventory,? pointed out Sandeep Lakhina, MD, Starcom. ?There will be a huge impact because of the loss of viewership,? he added.

ESPN-STAR, the host broadcaster, didn?t respond to e-mails or calls.

But as Shashi Sinha, CEO of Lodestar Univeral, pointed out the biggest impact will be felt by advertisers. ?The T20 is pre-sold and about 80% of the inventory has already been sold.? With India out, Shailendra Singh, joint managing director of Percept Ltd, said advertisers might not be able to demand the premium that they would have for the finals.

Timmy Kandhari, executive director and leader entertainment and media practice, PWC, put it in perspective: ?India is the largest market for cricket. The IPL experienced huge ad spends. The T20 could have experienced major eyeballs if India performed well, but the ad spends for the tournament cannot be compared to the IPL. The fact that the matches are around 10 pm also hinders the growth of viewership.?

The television ratings of T20 have ranged between 3.4 and 5.3 when India played a match. According to TV rating agency aMap, India played its first match of the tournament against Bangladesh on June 6 and experienced an average rating of 3.9. The India – West Indies match played on June 12 experienced the highest average rating of 5.3 for the tournament. ?However, the last match where India played against England got a rating of 4.8. The ratings are terribly low compared to the India vs Pakistan T20 final on September 24, 2007 with TVRs touching a peak of 15.2. Now, with India exiting early, there?s no way TVRs in India will reach even half of that.