Sony Set Max, the Indian Premier League’s exclusive broadcaster, is set to hike ad spots rates during the live 18 hour marathon of the IPL auctions and the IPL matches. Set Max, which has 10 years of exclusive rights for the IPL since 2008, will charge advertisers nearly three to five times higher than normal movie programming rates during the auction, while rates during the matches will be 15-20% higher than last year.
Max senior executive vice-president & business head Sneha Rajani said, ?The ad spot rates are going to be three to five times the Max movie rates, and during the matches, rates have gone up by 15 to 20% from last year.?
“This is the first time we are airing the auction. This is a milestone event the IPL calender. Fans of the IPL will be on the edge of their seats,? Rajani added.
The IPL auction, TV’s hottest property at the moment, will take place over the next two days in Bangalore. Around 350 top cricketers from around the globe will go under the hammer with 10 IPL franchisees, including the two new teams from Kochi and Pune vying with each other to buy out these stars. While the biggies like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Shane Warne and several others have been retained by their respective teams, players like Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Yuvraj Singh and RP Singh up for auction.
Professional auctioneer Richard Madley from England, who has conducted each of the previous IPL player auctions, will be in control of the proceedings at Bangalore this year as well.