When the Indian Premier League (IPL), the twenty-20 cricket tournament launched by the Board of Control For Cricket in India (BCCI), made its debut in 2008 it was hailed as the ultimate cricket-meets-entertainment blockbuster. The multi-million-dollar money spinning brainchild of BCCI set new records as one of the hottest media properties, not just in India, but in the global sports marketing arena rewriting all rules of marketing. Brands scrambled over each other to advertise on this new platform that reaches to almost every important target group in the country. As IPL emerged as one of the most success-ful leagues in the world, it became a role model for numerous other sports leagues.

Five years down the road, IPL continues to be the most sought-after property on television indicating that IPL is still the best platform to launch a new product or a new ad campaign. For the week April 15-21, among the general entertainment channels, Star Plus had the highest GRP (gross rating points) at 248 GRP, followed by Zee TV at 214 GRP, Sony at 209 GRP, Colors at 194 GRP, according to data from television audience measurement firm TAM Media Research. In comparison, IPL broadcaster SET Max had 344 GRP. Again in the following week, that is, April 22-28, when there were only five primetime games against the usual seven every week, SET Max garnered 299 GRP, said a statement from the channel. For that week, Star Plus had 255 GRP, Zee TV had 210 GRP, Sony 240 GRP and Colors 195 GRP.

?IPL is a high investment, high return asset. It is still the biggest blockbuster property on television,? says T Gangadhar, managing director, MEC India (Group M?s media agency). Talking about whether IPL is still the safest bet for advertisers, he says, ?The reasons for IPL continuing to hold its charm for advertisers could be: First, the pressure of April-May being a peak business season, second, a product/ brand launch in this period and, third, the fear of losing the property to competition (most prevalent in consumer durables and telcos). These three reasons make it imperative for advertisers to ride on the back of IPL.?

At the same time, overall television viewership ratings have dipped, leading to some advertisers demanding that SET Max lower its ad rates to reflect the new reality. The dip in viewership started last year itself. According to data for 27 matches collected by TAM Sports, a division of TAM Media Research, in the all-India market, average TVR percentage was 4.80 for IPL 1, 4.29 for IPL 2, 4.75 for IPL 3, 3.88 for IPL 4 and 3.43 for IPL 5. In terms of cumulative reach in 1000s, IPL 1 garnered 89504, IPL 2 got 106421, IPL 3 got 143230, IPL 4 got 140272 and IPL 5 has 137174. Result: IPL has lost some of its big advertisers in the fifth season ? last year the number of advertisers on SET Max, which broadcasts the IPL matches, was 11 and this year it is seven ? Vodafone and Idea Cellular as the co-presenting sponsors and PepsiCo, Tata Teleservices, Havells, Cadbury and Jaina Marketing as associate sponsors.

To be sure, IPL has been doing its best to get the eyeballs, and thereby the advertisers? money. IPL?s own marketing budget has gone up by 25% this year, but that hasn?t helped turn the tide as several of last season?s big sponsors such as Videocon, Samsung, Godrej, LG, L?Oreal and Hyundai have preferred to keep away from IPL in 2012. Even though there are some new ones on board there is an overall dip in the number of advertisers.

Shashi Sinha, CEO of media agency Lodestar UM says comparing this year?s ratings to last year?s is not fair. He says, ?There are a lot of people who are saying that IPL is not doing well. That is not true. In the top ten programmes category, 50% of the programmes are IPL matches. None of the shows get the kind of ratings that IPL matches get. All the major brands are still on board including the major telecom brands. If you want to launch a new brand, IPL is still the best medium.?

However, marketers who have pulled out of the league this year think that the current viewership numbers do not justify the ad rates that SET Max is offering. ?We backed out this year primarily because of the dip in popularity of IPL and we expected that dip to continue further and it is. Even the absolute reach has gone down,? says Mayank Shah, group product manager, Parle Products. ?I think that IPL is a good property with a good amount of viewership but the price is not right. They have to rationalize the price and charge a fair amount. If they were offering the right price based on the viewership they are getting, we would have been on-board. They should have cut down the rates by 30%. There is also fatigue associated with cricket now and the performance in international cricket hasn?t been good either. Also, you need to keep innovating a property like IPL and IPL is not doing that.?

Gangadhar, however, says, ?I?d take a wait and watch approach on this one ?at least till we reach the halfway mark of the league. Multi Screen Media (MSM), which owns SET Max, has paid big bucks for these rights and will rightfully expect to monetize them. At the same time, given the large outlays, I am sure advertisers have made a very strong case for being on IPL, within their respective organisations. To preserve confidence in the property, MSM must ensure that advertiser interests are protected tothe fullest extent possible.?

Sinha feels that since IPL is a big platform, it needs deep-pocketed advertisers. ?The demand in reduction for TV spots is not justified. Finally, there are enough advertisers who see value in the medium and they are getting that value. For example, Amul is a new client this year but Wipro backed out. So, ultimately it boils down to what a client wants, what kind of money he wants to invest, etc.?

Another reason for several big brands staying away from IPL this year, says Gangadhar, could be that many advertisers have tightened their purse-strings and are not keen to lock up a significant portion of their annual budget into just one property.

Interestingly, a lot of brands are seeing more value in leveraging IPL on the digital medium, making the internet and mobile phone important allies in their marketing campaigns. Parle is advertising on indiatimes.com this year which is live streaming all the IPL matches. Says Shah of Parle, ?We are doing digital campaigns around IPL as we believe that is a better growing medium and gives us a good ad rates. A major section of viewers comes from urban India and those people are watching these matches online, on compu-ters and on mobile phones.? The IPL study by MEC reports that 38% claimed to have watched IPL4 online (33% on Youtube). But only 22% intend watching it online this season. The exact number will be knows at the end of the series.

Coming to advertising revenue projections and how much of the ad spend this year will be boosted by IPL, Gangadhar says, ?We expect overall ad expenditure to increase by around 12% this year and TV ad expenditure to increase by about 15%. The spends are likely to be skewed towards the second half of the year. The first half spends this year is likely to be lower than last year because we had the ICC World Cup in the first quarter of last year. Going by current figures, we expect IPL to rake in about 20-25% lower than that of last year.?

Sinha is expecting an 8% growth in TV advertising this year as compared to last year. ?So if we take the April-May-June quarter, the overall TV spend would be R2000 crore,out of which IPL gets about R600-700 crore.?